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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Songs from Bohemia 



BY 

Daniel O'Connell 



... 5 



Edited by Ina D. Coolbrith 
Biographical Sketch by Wm. Greer Harrison 



SAN FRANCISCO 
A. M. ROBERTSON 

1900 



1 



91413 

i Library of Conjrreas 

Iwo Copies Received 
DEC 201900 

SECOND COPY 

OellvarMi to 

ORDER DIVISION 
JAN 11 1901 






COPYRIGHT, 1900 

BY 

MABEL ASHLEY o'CONNELL 



THE MURDOCH PRESS 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Biographical Sketch i 

After Death i8i 

Alone 159 

Angelus, The 163 

Angler's Confession, The 59 

Anita 57 

Archery Idyl, An 136 

Ashes 15 

At Rest 17 

Bal-Masque 211 

Berrying 161 

Business of the Future, The 205 

By the Lake 70 

By the Sea 52 

Camp Indolence 13 

Cenci, The 183 

Chamber of Sleep, The 231 

Christmas Dream, A 66 

Christmas Reverie, A 22 

Color of Gold, The 121 

Crastine Vive Hodis 36 

Cui Bono? 11 

Dead in the Mine 130 

iii 



iv Contents 

Dead Warrior, The 113 

Death List, The 176 

Difference, The i99 

DiGMAN Pasha 94 

Drayman, The 187 

Drowned 89 

Drunk in the Street 26 

Enamored 30 

Exile's Musings, The 227 

Fallen 62 

Farewell no 

Farewell the Pipe 49 

Favorite Toast, The 74 

Fifty Years Ago 221 

God's Forgotten Poor 170 

In Memoriam 50 

In Memory 153 

In Sir Humphrey's Hall 165 

In the Coliseum 76 

Into God's Hands 119 

Irish Tramp, The 33 

Is Life Worth Living? 217 

Jovina: a Legend of the San Carlos Mission 38 

Just as of Old 224 

La Grippe lor 

Land of the Never Was, The 84 

Last Pool, The 128 

Legend of the Hazel 213 

"Little Hut upon the Beach," . 195 

Loving-Cup, The 191 



ConUntisf V 

Market-Day 189 

Marriage a la Mode 92 

Mary's Cat • 215 

May Idyl, A 9 

Mission Dolores 123 

Mission Roses 147 

Monterey 108 

Mutations 103 

My Favorite Book 179 

Nature and Man 91 

New- Year Thoughts 47 

Old Sailor, The 132 

Only a Woman's Face 106 

On the Banks of the Nile . . 134 

On the Brink 201 

Outcast 138 

Refugee, The 151 

River's Teachings, The 219 

Romance and Reality 54 

Rose and the Nightingale, The 208 

Rose and the Wind, The 157 

Rover 139 

Singer, The 125 

Sing Me a Ringing Anthem 45 

Song of the Fields 203 

South Wind, The 185 

Spanish Vista, A 72 

State-House Bell, The (1776) 80 

Sweethearts and Wives 24 

Through Sun and Cloud 174 



vi Content!2( 

Tom Moore 96 

Trees . . . 141 

True Philosopher, The 144 

Two Rivers 87 

Waiter, The 104 

Wanderers from the Sea 99 

Were I to Die To-night 197 

Which? 229 

Willow Tree, The 28 

Wine Pictures 19 

With the Dead 64 

Workers, The 116 



DANIEL O'CONNELL 

The biographic gift is rare, and at best its possessor 
can only depict the man as he appeared to him. I have 
often thought that a biography should be like a composite 
picture, made up of the several views of the subject. 

The publishers of this work have asked me to write 
a brief sketch of Dan O'Connell's life. I am quite sure 
the request is made because of my love for the man, and 
not because of any very special fitness for the work. I 
knew, and I think understood, O'Connell. Our friend- 
ship covered a quarter of a century of California' s growth. 
I saw him under all the conditions of life. I knew him 
as poet, litterateur, athlete, humorist, and Bohemian; and 
the more I saw of him, and the better I knew him, the 
more I loved him. 

His good humor was inexhaustible, his nature sunny, 
and his temper exceptionally sweet. 

But under the jester's' garb, beneath the habiliments of 
humor, there was a nature strong, deep, and extremely 
reflective; a mind that dealt with all the great problems 
of life, that dared to question, that dared to ask why. 

O' Connell was a true Bohemian in the highest sense 
of that much misunderstood word. He had an abundant 
faith in the providential impulses of his friends, who never 
failed him. The cares and worries of ordinary life passed 



IBtogtapgtcal &Utti 



him by as one immune. No man ever saw O'Connell in 
despondent mood. He was the sun itself — comforting 
others, he had no time for regrets. He was in love with 
Nature, and she was very generous in her gifts to him. 
He had a magnificent physique — which he kept always 
in condition. He was an excellent boxer, a capital wres- 
tler, a splendid swordsman, a great angler, and loved all 
kinds of outdoor life. Had he not been a Celt, he would 
have been a gypsy. 

Bohemian as he was, he knew nothing of idleness, 
mental or physical. His pen was ever busy with the 
things of life; his mind was ever in the dreams, hopes, 
passions that do not belong to mere materialism, but 
which are the environment of the poet. But the cumula- 
tive art was abhorrent to O'Connell. His desire to spend 
far exceeded his capacity to acquire. It would follow that 
he would frequently find himself in short straits, and that 
his table would be decorated by suggestion only. I have 
dined with him when the ** banquet" was almost entirely 
intellectual, and the simple meal was made luxurious by 
the wealth of his humor and the beauty of his thoughts. 
He was an inventor of humor, genial, loving hits without 
a suggestion of rancor. His laugh was a benison, his 
smile an inspiration. To be with him was to be happy. 

The rich organ-like tone of his voice was a moral tonic, 
bracing one up to deeds of love. 

He had no enemies, because he would not permit any 
man to be out of harmony with him. 

With all his humor, — indeed, because of his humor, — 
O'Connell was a reverent man, and the profound things 



Btograplbical &lietc|) 



of life were sacred to him. Born in beautiful, historic 
Clare, in the old town of Ennis, one of the most romantic 
spots in a land of romance, son of a distinguished lawyer, 
Charles O'Connell, grand-nephew of the great Irish 
patriot, associating with the brightest and best in his 
native land, O'Connell had every advantage in his en- 
vironment. Naturally he would sympathize with youth's 
fair dreams of a people lifted by song and oratory from a 
position of dependence to the alta of hope, the lofty pin- 
nacle of freedom, and his Celtic heart went out in patriotic 
songs which were echoed throughout his native vale. 

O'Connell in himself connected the family of Derry- 
nane, the home of the great Liberator, with his own 
family at Ennis. The young lad was always a welcome 
visitor to Derrynane, where his quick wit and heart-born 
humor made him one of the family. 

O'Connell greatly resembled the orator in physique 
and vocal expression. There was the same quality of 
voice, the same musical expression, the same Celtic inspi- 
ration. Both loved and spoke the language of their fathers 
— a language rich in liquid beauty, powerful in its strength, 
grand in its dramatic use, falling upon the ear of the Celt 
as the songs of the gods. 

O'Connell' s early education was directed by the Jesuit 
Fathers, whose training left a profound impression on his 
mind, evidenced by his keen appreciation of the classics 
and of all phases of philosophy. His life at the Jesuit 
College in Dublin, though brief, must have been full of 
delightful incidents; for all through his wandering career 
he never ceased to speak in loving terms of what he 



IBiograpJical fefeetcfi 



regarded as his Alma Mater. He must have drank deeply 
from the loving-cup of youth in his college days, and we 
can well believe there was never a heavy hour with his 
companions, nor a weary moment with his friends in the 
old college. A fatal accident to his beloved mother and 
sister, who were drowned by the upsetting of a coach in 
the Grand Canal reservoir, brought him back to his home. 

From the home of the mourner, O'Connell was trans- 
ferred to Clongowes Wood College, the chief establish- 
ment of the Jesuit order in Ireland, where he remained 
for three years. There he absorbed Latin and Greek 
and caught the passion for literature which influenced all 
his life. 

His father was offered a commission in the British 
Navy for his son, and the boy, always an enthusiastic 
lover of the world of waters, left the shades of classic 
Clongowes to become a toiler of the seas. He became 
a middy, and it is not difficult to believe that he was a 
most welcome addition to his mess. His frolics, his 
escapades, his wit, and above all his splendid temper, 
made him the idol of his brother middies. He saw all 
sides of the world during his sea-going days, and his 
visits ashore were always the occasion of legitimate mirth 
and boyish jollification. 

A bachelor uncle of O'Connell's, resident in New 
York, induced the sailor lad to pay him a visit. The 
fascination of the New World led O'Connell to abandon 
the sea; but the death of his uncle changed his prospects 
in the city of wealth, and he migrated to San Francisco. 

Here he found his Mecca. The freedom of thought 



©lOfftapSical &feetcS 



and impulse, the generous disposition of the people, the 
thousand and one charms which no one can explain, but 
which all appreciate, captured his youthful imagination 
and held him in gentle bonds all his life. 

His earliest days in California — days of undoubted 
happiness — were spent at Santa Clara College, then under 
the presidency of the Rev. Father Varsi, a man of great 
culture, noble nature, and most charming manner. 

It was natural that O'Connell should drift into journal- 
ism, chiefly, perhaps, because in that profession he found 
so many bright, genial companions, so many brilliant fel- 
lows whose Bohemian appreciation of life and its myste- 
ries found a ready response in his own nature. 

To the journalistic class the Bohemian Club owes its 
origin and its splendid success. O'Connell was one of 
the founders, and remained all his life the truest and best 
exponent of its social ideas. He towered high in Bohe- 
mia, upon which he never lost his loving grip nor a 
moment of its allegiance, and to the last he was Bohemia. 

Hundreds of bright men passed into Bohemia and 
out into the grave, but to O'Connell alone was rendered 
the last tribute of the great. That which contained the 
noble form of him whom we loved always, was placed in 
the Green Room of the Club, and his mourners, from all 
classes, reverently looked upon their beloved and wept 
and passed away. 

O'Connell' s life as a journalist, dramatist, novelist, and 
poet was too large, too full of incident and pathos to be 
told in a fragmentary way. His place in literature must 
be described by some other pen. The man as I knew 



Biographical §)lietcS 



him is my topic, but his life-work demands the attention 
of the gifted. That he had a place, a distinguished place, 
in literature must be accorded. That he is not more 
widely known, that his works are not more generally 
demanded, is readily understood. O'Connell was su- 
premely indifferent to the commercial side of art, and 
could not avail himself of even legitimate advertising. 
He wrote for his friends. He wrote because the message 
in him demanded utterance. His message was noble — 
his readers must determine the character of its utterance. 

O'Connell, like many kindred artists, delighted in 
delicate cookery. He was a natural chef, and the dishes 
which he prepared were odes, madrigals, songs, hymns, 
as the fancy took him. He wrote a charming work on 
the etiquette of eating, and he cordially disliked the 
slovenly feeder. 

He was attached from time to time to all the dailies, 
and most of the weeklies, and his style, always Celtic, 
his ready wit, and versatile pen gave his work a distinc- 
tion at a time when San Francisco rejoiced in a legion of 
exceptionally brilliant men. 

His "Bluff King Hal," a delightful opera, which he 
wrote in collaboration with Dr. H. J. Stewart, his drama, 
'*The Red Fox," his novel, "A Special Deposit," in 
which he collaborated with J. V. Coleman, are of the class 
of work that deserves to live. But his fugitive pieces, 
his good-natured satire, his merry conceits — these not 
being framed between boards, linger only in the memory 
of his intimates. Could they be collected, in them would 
be found a library in which all phases of life were presented. 



IBiofftapSical ^feetcfi 



He, jointly with Henry George, founded the Evening 
Post, and to his fertile fancy we owe the birth of the Illus- 
trated Bohemia?i, which, unhappily, refused to live. 

For thirty-three years O'Connell sang to the people of 
San Francisco. Occasionally he wandered into other 
spheres, but always returned to the city of his love to 
renew his allegiance. He was once lured away to the 
island kingdom of Hawaii when Kalakaua reigned. 

Between the monarch and the poet there was instant 
friendship, and with the chivalric tendency of the Celt, 
O'Connell threw his gauntlet at the world, challenging all 
who dared to see Kalakaua with other eyes than the 
champion's. But Hawaii, with all its charms, was only an 
incident; O'Connell's life and work were here. 

O'Connell's home life was singularly happy. In 1874 
he married Miss Annie Ashley, the daughter of Senator 
Delos R. Ashley. With kindred tastes and a boy-and- 
girl love, which endured all the vicissitudes of life, their 
union was perfect. A large family made the household 
a small world where love reigned. O'Connell's children 
worshiped their genial father, and it is to that filial devo- 
tion on the part of his family, and the desire to honor his 
memory, that this book owes its birth. 

In his " Lyrics," of which he published a volume, the 
true poet speaks his best thoughts. Here we have 
O'Connell himself, singing his Celtic strain, tenderly 
touching us to tears or laughter as the humor took him. 

Strange coincidence, the last of his songs — the last 
that he sang — the last in this work, was written just 
ten days before his fatal illness. In the "Chamber of 



8 lBiD0i:ap8icaI fefettcj 

Silence," O'Connell unconsciously spoke his farewell 
message to his world — said good-by to loving friends, 
and entered by anticipation the silent mansion where 
death reigns. 

Broken down by the burden of a great grief, his wife, 
the dear companion of so many years, lingered here only 
long enough to say farewell to her many friends, and then 
joined her husband in the land that is hidden from ma- 
terial eyes, where love and life are one. 

W. G. H. 



Songs from Bohemia 



A MAY IDYL 

Through pleasant vales the streamlets course; 
The babble of a summer's day- 
Fills all the fragrant fields of May; 
The wild flowers here, and there the gorse, 
Are stirred with breezes mild and sweet, 
Fair carpeting for Summer's feet. 

Ah! who that rests beneath the trees 

And drinks in Nature's holy calm, 

The song of birds, the freshing balm 

The teeming earth exhales, but sees 

In all those gracious things the hand 

Of Him, the artist of them all? 

The brook, the wood, the swelling seas. 

The thunder of the waterfall. 

The birds that dip and spring and rise, 

The gracious sun, the azure skies. 

Are picture limned for men to praise 

The Artist, while in Nature's ways 

From dawn of day to set of sun, 

They walk, and mark the work well done. 

9 

B 



lo ^ igi^a^ B^I 



Who, then, shall sit in endless gloom, 
The shadow of the soul within. 
And brood on ruin, wrong, and sin, 
And let the vapors of the tomb 
Embrace him like a cerement. 
When Nature's summer sacrament 
Awaits him in the field and wood, — 
Is for him by the shining flood 
To stir the current of his blood, 
And bid him look above and praise 
The Power that guides, nor ever strays 
From clemency to us, but makes 
This summer landscape for our sakes? 

Then, weary toilers, put aside 
The petty schemes, the nets you weave 
With thoughts of hate and jealous pride, 
And hand in hand walk forth with May, 
And drink the incense of the breeze. 
And list the lessons of the trees, 
And live in peace one perfect day. . 



GUI BONO? 

As A traveler belated, who still follows 

The windings of the wood, and hopes to see 

At length, beyond the dense and tangled hollows, 
The dying sun illume the open lea, 

But meets, instead, thick brake and growing 
shadows. 
Then sinks upon the damp and trackless clay, 
And, weary, dreams of open fragrant meadows, 
And wakes and sleeps, and longs and moans for 
day. 

Is he, who stored with wealth of garnered learning. 
Would solve the mystery that wraps him round. 

And dream that unswayed science, cold, discerning, 
Can pass beyond this clay-encircled bound. 

He reads the stars, he measures every distance 
That lies between each planet and the earth; 

The globe itself can offer no resistance. 
But yields to him the story of its birth. 

But when he grapples with his own soul's mystery, 
A wall unyielding rears its bulk between; 



12 €ni 150no? 



All else surrenders long-restrained history, 
This only stands a grim, impervious screen. 

We live, we die — so much, no more, is given: 
From dust we spring, return again to dust. 

And ties are made, and dearer ties are riven, 
And trust is true, and oft betrayed is trust. 

What good, I ask you, is this vain undoing? 

What good this fruitless measurement of years ? 
The old beliefs may perish — the pursuing 

Can only find its goal in nameless fears 

That we may perish with the tree and blossom, 
And be no more in any time or place. 

But form one atom of Earth's mighty bosom. 
One particle upon the parent's face. 

What good ? Ah me, who cares for the hereafter, 
If only here we taste the hour's delight ? 

The world is full of song, and wine, and laughter; 
The day is ours — be happy until night. 



CAMP INDOLENCE 

Our camp beneath a shady oak, 
The sand a carpet at our feet, 

The bay before us, and around 

The summer breezes fresh and sweet. 

Here all the day we lie and dream, 
Nor read, nor speak, but lazily 

Look out upon the waves and think 
On all the secrets of the sea. 

The ships sail in, the ships sail out. 
White sea-gulls hover here and there; 

The fisher's song from far-off beach 
Comes softly on the evening air. 

At night the drift-wood fire is piled. 
It seams the dark with crimson bars; 

Its sparks shoot up a ghttering shower, 
In yearning for the distant stars. 

This is another world, indeed, — 
A world of deepest peace serene, — 

Where all the cares of troublous years 
Come to us onlv as a dream 

13 



14 Camp Iritolmtt 

From which we have awaked, to find 
The perfect peace of perfect rest — 

The home that Fate for man designed, 
Close, close on Mother Nature's breast. 



ASHES 

Buds and blossoms, and life-renewal, — 

Strong, passionate life in Nature's plan; 
Corn upspringing, and full brooks rushing, 

Torpor alone in the heart of man. 
Stagnant and dull and beyond revival. 

The once quick pulses now sad and slow; 
Spring joyfully breathes on the moldering ashes, 

But their bright, fierce fever no more shall glow. 

Buds and blossoms and leaves outstarting, 

Promise of harvest and promise of wine, 
Only the human heart lies dormant — 

Dormant, athirst for the thrill divine, — 
The olden thrill that awoke its music. 

And bade it leaf with the leafing tree, 
Bud with flowers, with streams expanding. 

Swell out and onward to life's great sea. 

Is this the goblet that once could gladden? 

This discord music? these wan lips red? 
To some sepulcher bear both cup and woman. 

Let strains be sounded to please the dead. 

15 



i6 mW 

Ah ! the wine is sweet and rich as ever, 
The Hps as tempting, the heart as true, 

' T is the heart alone that has turned to ashes, 
The bay to cypress, the rose to rue. 

O Mother Nature, if Hfe 's worth living. 

Once more I crave you that glorious sense 
Of high endeavor and ancient passion. 

With its strength of life and fire intense. 
When grief was greater, and love was deeper. 

And music clearer, and grape-juice bright. 
And the buoyant years were unflecked by shadow, 

But all was purpose and hope and light. 



Must we ever hnger while others hasten? 

Must we be sighing while others sing? 
Is the wine of life for us exhausted? 

And winter chill us, though it be spring ? 
No more for us is the rosy dawning: 

The sun creeps downward — we mark its rays; 
But O for the strong, rich flush of morning 

That lit the splendor of other days ! 



AT REST 

Weary of the rivers, and the verdure of the 
meadows; 
Of the sky's unchanging azure, of the sea's un- 
tiring hymn; 
Of the glories of the landscape, with its sunshine 
and its shadows; 
Of the bustle of the city, with its folly and its sin. 

Panting with a longing, and a golden - misted 
dreaming 
For a haven where the spirit knows no surfeit in 
its joy; 
Where the sparkle of the wine-cup, and the love 
from bright eyes streaming. 
Steal from age its bitter poison — steal from time 
its power to cloy. 

Where regrets may never enter, never cross the 
guarded portal; 
Where decay shall be a stranger, and the past an 
unstained leaf, 

17 



1 8 m m^t 

With no doubtings for the future, but a sense of 
bHss immortal — 
Deaf to hear the voice of sorrow, strong to turn 
the lance of grief. 

Where the wailing of the widow, and the wrong and 
crime and aching 
In the hearts of saddened brothers, treading dark 
and lonesome ways, 
Shall never pierce the ramparts, nor, the trance 
perpetual breaking, 
Cloud the sun of its enjoyment, mar the music 
of its lays. 

Where no winter' s frost may wither flowers of per- 
fume everlasting — 
Never hush the song of brooklets, change the 
splendor of the scene; 
But the shades of peace eternal — soul and sense 

and mind o' ercasting — 
• Wrap them safe from outer troubles, in a grand 
unbroken dream. 



WINE PICTURES 

"Fill me a brimming goblet," 

I said to my winsome wife; 
''Let me read, in its bubbles reflected, 

The story of its life." 

From a flask, long treasured and olden, 

She filled the goblet up, 
And I spoke of the pictures that passed me 

In the bubbles of the cup. 

Here is a generous vineyard 
On the slope of a pleasant hill; 

Below, the village lies sleeping 
In the noontide, warm and still. 

I can hear the summons to labor, 
And the maids come tripping along 

To gather the grapes, while weaving 
Their toil into blithesome song. 

And one there is standing among them, 
Whose face is more fair and sweet 

Than all others; like snow in the winter 
Is the gleam of her bare white feet. 

19 



20 Wiim ^ittutt0 

She plucks from the vine its burden — 
They are fair, these maids of France — 

And she whispers to one who will lead her 
At eve through the village dance. 

He answers; she blushes. The story- 
Is the old one, ever new — 

The dawn of the dream — " And the ending, ' ' 
Quoth my wife, " I will read for you." 

See how the glamour and glory, 

Mark how the luster divine. 
In the hand of a woman departed 

From this cup of historic wine. 

' ' I see in this bubble your maiden, 

A wan and a weary wife; 
And I read in this wine the story 

Of a sad and a wasted life ! 

' ' No vineyard is here — no music 

Of villagers' songs at eve — 
But the wailing of wives heart-broken — 

And the sobs of mothers who grieve 

' ' For sons and husbands and brothers, 
And many a grand, great soul," — 



Wiint ^ictnu0 21 

Here I reached for the antique goblet, 
And drained the deHcious bowl, 

And remarked to my wife, ** When I started 

This pleasing little romance 
About vineyards and maidens and flirting. 

And billing and cooing in France, 

" 'T was not to provoke a sermon — " 
Here my wife in wrath went out, 

And I fought with the bottle till daylight, 
In an old-time bachelor bout. 



A CHRISTMAS REVERIE 

Until skies were darkened, and fortune failed me, 
And friends forsook me for lack of pelf, 

I never knew what a good companion, 
What a glorious fellow I was myself. 

Now, seated here by the blazing embers, 
With my cup of wine in the twilight dim, 

A long procession of dead Decembers 
Come floating over the goblet's rim. 

And I drink to him, that other fellow, 
Who never has wandered from my side. 

From youth's callow hours to the sere and yellow 
Pal and companion, both true and tried. 

We have no secrets from one another; 

We've been in sunshine, we 've been in rain. 
At the knees we 've knelt of the same dear mother 

By her bier have suffered the same keen pain. 

I bid him call up those dear dead faces 
We both so loved in the golden past. 

And we dream again of the old embraces. 
And the clinging arms about us clasped, 



And of one fair woman, so sweet and tender, 
No lovelier maid on God's earth, I ween; 

Oh, lips like rose-leaves, eyes deep and tender! 
Right proud you found us to call you queen. 

It was then we quarreled, you bid me shun her. 
And you called her false, and your words were 
sooth, — 

But what mortal eyes could have gazed upon her 
And not swear her breathing of love and truth. 

Then came hopes and fears, and long nights of 
waking, 

Heart-sore with yearning, and passion tossed, — 
One day contentment, and then the aching 

Of a ruined life and a treasure lost. 

Now, old companion who has walked beside me 
In desert paths and when blooms were rife, 

Too close and faithful to e'er deride me, 
My alter ego^ my other life, 

From this silver goblet we '11 quaff together 

The same good draught of the same good wine; 

When the curtains falls on life's stormy weather, 
In the same cold chamber we '11 both recline. 



SWEETHEARTS AND WIVES 

If sweethearts were sweethearts always, 

Whether as maid or wife, 
No drop would be half so pleasant 

In the mingled draught of life. 

But the sweetheart has smiles and blushes 
When the wife has frowns and sighs, 

And the wife's have a wrathful glitter 
For the glow of the sweetheart's eyes. 

If lovers were lovers always, 

The same to sweetheart and wife, 

Who would change for a future of Eden 
The joys of this checkered life ? 

But husbands grow grave and silent. 
And cares on the anxious brow 

Oft replace the sunshine that perished 
At the words of the marriage vow. 

Happy is he whose sweetheart 
Is wife and sweetheart still — 

Whose voice, as of old, can charm him. 
Whose kiss, as of old, can thrill; 

24 



&toeeti)eart0 and mi\^t0 25 

Who has plucked the rose, to find ever 

Its beauty and fragrance increase, 
As the flush of passion is mellowed 

In love's unmeasured peace; 

Who sees in the step a lightness; 

Who finds in the form a grace; 
Who reads an unaltered brightness 

In the witchery of the face, 

Undimmed and unchanged. Ah! happy 

Is he, crowned with such a life, 
Who drinks the wife, pledging the sweetheart, 

And toasts in the sweetheart the wife. 



C 



DRUNK IN THE STREET 

"" Drunk, your honor," the officer said: 

'' Drunk in the street, sir." She raised her head; 

A Hngering trace of the olden grace 

Still softened the lines of her woe-worn face; 

Unkempt and tangled her rich brown hair; 

Yet with all the furrows and stains of care, 

The years of anguish and sin and despair, 

The child of the city was passing fair. 

The ripe red mouth, with lips compressed, 
The rise and fall of the heaving breast. 
The taper fingers, so slender and small. 
That crumple the fringe of the tattered shawl. 
As she stands in her place at the officer's call. 
Seem good and fair, seem tender and sweet, 
Though this fallen woman was drunk in the street. 

Does the hand that once smoothed the ripple and 

wave 
Of that golden hair lie still in its grave ? 
Are the lips that pressed her lips to their own 
Dead to the pain of that stifled moan? 

26 



SDrunli in t§e Street 27 

Has the voice ihat once chimed with the lisping 

prayer 
No accent of hope for the lost one there — 
Bearing her burden of shame and despair ? 

Drunk in the street — in the gutter down — 
From a passionate longing to crush and drown 
The soul of the woman she might have been, — 
To cast off the weight of a fearful dream, 
And awake once more in the home hard by 
The wooded mountain that kissed the sky; 
To pause a while on the path to school 
And catch, by the depths of the limpid pool, 
Under the willow shade, green and cool, 
A dimpled face and a laughing eye, 
And the pleasant words of the passers-by. 

Ye men with sisters and mothers and wives. 

Have ye no care for these women's lives? 

Must they starve for the comfort ye never speak? 

Must they ever be sinful and erring and weak, 

Tottering onward with weary feet. 

Stained in the gutter, and drunk in the street ? 



THE WILLOW-TREE 

Once, when the world was young, the willow 
proudly lifted 
Its branches to the smiling sky as straight as 
poplar-tree; 
Silver cloudlets greeted it, soft winds o'er it drifted, 
None dared to rival its grace and symmetry 

Murmuring rivers wooed it with accents low and 
tender, 
But it never bent to listen — its gaze was on the 
sun; 
Yearning to the zenith, its tendrils lithe and 
slender, 
Bid the stars a welcome, saw the dawn begun. 

Alas for the direful hour the tyrants flogged our 
Saviour! 
Flogged him with willow rods ! — then it cursed 
its birth! 
And since that bitter time, mourning their behavior, 
The willow-tree has, weeping, bent toward the 
parent earth. 

28 



^6t ^illoto - ^ttt 29 

Crying in its anguish, " Mother, who can blame 
me? 
Dear Christ, forgive me! O children of men, 
Do not my weeping boughs through all the ages 
shame thee? 
I who unconsciously wrought the Saviour pain. 

** Oh, had I a voice! then never Heaven's thunder. 
Nor all its clamor the shrinking woods among — 

Aye, though its bolts tore rod and branch asunder. 
Could command me silence in this cruel wrong. 

** Yet fondly do I hope I shall yet be shriven, 
And my offending forgotten evermore; 

That, in the ages, Christ, who has forgiven. 
Shall lift up kindly my branches as of yore." 



ENAMORED 

If ever I think of those pleasant nights, 
Those moments of loving we stole from the ball, 

And if ever I dream of those dear delights, 
When you and I parted, at twelve, in the hall, 

I assure you, Miss Inez, it is not because 

I fancied your heart ever turned towards me. 

We flirted, you know, but respected the laws, 
So both from love's arrows are perfectly free. 

Yet, again, I have thought in your eyes dwelt a 
light — 

A something denied to the rest of the world — 
When prone at your feet, on the festival night, 

Beneath that old porch I lay blissfully curled. 

'Twas a charming flirtation; we both were expert, 

And both rather seasoned — well up in the art — 

Though I sometimes half wished that you were not 

a flirt, 

And had less of the ball-room and more of the 

heart. 

30 



(Enamoreti 31 



For your hand, love, was soft (I am e'en flirting 
yet, 
So the language is naturally tender and warm), 
And I 've tried very hard, dear, but can not forget 
How my silly cheeks burned when you leant on 
my arm. 

And I 've dreamed now and then that we were not 
in jest, 
But were each, mind and soul, all in all to the 
other; 
And I 've hoped, in my blindness, there burned in 
your breast, 
A spark that our vanities never could smother. 

Well, of course, I was wrong; but still do I wear 
The rose-leaves you gave me — those rose-leaves 
you kissed; 

And I find in my locket a tress of brown hair. 
And I find in my bosom that something is missed. 

'T was playing with fire; and if one felt the pang. 
And still feels the scar — why, who is to blame? 

You remember the ballad one evening you sang. 
About ^ * loving and trust bringing sorrow and 
shame" ? 



32 (Enamoteti 



Did we love and trust? Did you fear that we 
might. 
When you sang me that ballad of shame and 
disgrace ? 
Let bygones be bygones ; farewell, and good- 
night! 
Pass out from my life-path, O beautiful face! 



THE IRISH TRAMP 

Whin the sun is shining brightly, an' the grass 

(God bless it!) is green, 
Like the ould sod o'er the ocean I sailed from at 

siventeen, 
An' my mother came down to the steamer (it was 

the first she ever did see), 
Crying, "Terence Cushla Machorra, don't forget 

the Asthon Machree." 

Whin the sun is shining brightly, an' the grass 

(God bless it!) is green, 
Back to me like a vision comes her face in that 

parting scene, 
Wid her gray hair over her shoulders, an' her arms 

about me neck, 
An' she begging the Virgin to save me from sin 

an' trouble an' wreck. 

Shure she thought I 'd make me fortune in a couple 

of years or more, 
An' come sailing back wid my pockets lined, again 

to sweet Ireland's shore, 

33 



34 %lit Iti0i ^ramp 

An' buy the ould cabin out an' out, an' ride in my 

coach an' four, 
An' till the meadows wid fine milch cows, an' have 

pigs an' sheeps galore, 

An' marry the landlord's daughter, an' become a 

magistrate, 
An' drink whisky an' wine an' porter wid the 

wealthy an' the great, 
An' restore once more the O'Houllihans to their 

ancient medaval state, 
An' for the County Galway in Parliament take my 

sate. 

Av course, it was idle draming; but many a night 

I know 
Has the ould mother, sad an' lonesome, sat by the 

logwood's glow. 
An' smiled whin she thought of her gossoon away 

beyond the say, 
Makin' slathers of money to carry home to his 

mother's lap some day. 

Whin the sun is shining brightly, an' the grass 

(God bless it!) is green, 
An' the beautiful sky above me is smiling an' 

serene, 



Ut)e Jri0f) ^ramp 35 



I wondfrr, al;ts, I worjd(:r, an' my j/rirny chf-jik^ 

j/row damp, 
Jf thf: oij]rJ mother homf: in Irr^land prays still for 

thr: Irish Tramp. 



CRASTINE VIVE HODIE 

Give us this day our daily bread; 
Feed us to-day, and let the morrow 

Trust to itself. 
We live to-day, and little care 
What burdens foolish mortals bear 

For love of pelf. 

The day is ours — the sun, the breeze, 
The song of streams, the shade of trees. 

The balmy wine. 
The clasp of hands, the flash of eye, 
The melody of passion's sigh 

In love divine. 

Our daily bread — not for the years 
Do we foreshadow joy or tears — 

But for the day. 
We care not if through toil or rest. 
With heart o'erjoyed, or sore oppressed, 

We see our way. 
r,6 



€ta0tim l^ibe l^odie 37 

Let it be hidden; if we fail, 
Life is at best so dim, so frail, 

It matters not — 
If we the thorny path may dimb 
Or faltering, sink before our time 

And are forgot. 

Shall we, the atoms of a day. 
Build palaces along our way, 

And glory crave, 
When every hour we see the end 
Of wife and mistress, father, friend. 

Is but the grave? 



JOVINA 

A LEGEND OF THE SAN CARLOS MISSION 

Many legends of the Mission, in the pleasant days 

of old, 
Round the hearth in Spanish households, when 

evening falls, are told; 
Many tales of love and daring, and woman's faith, 

that last 
In the archives of those people who reverence the 

past. 
In the cold, material present, it is well to catch a 

glance 
Of those dim and moldering pages of a country's 

brief romance. 

One evening in December, half a century ago, 
In the Mission of San Carlos fell the sunset wintry 

glow. 
From the belfry-tower the Angelus was musically 

rung. 
In the aisles the hymns were chanted in the soft 

Castilian tongue, 

38 



Padre Juan, with hands upHfted, the kneeling faith- 
ful blest, 

Then dismissed them, — and the Mission was 
wrapped in sleep and rest. 

Up rose the moon; its soft light in tender shimmer 
lay 

On the cypress-shadowed bosom of Carmel's tran- 
quil bay. 

Round Point Pinos' rugged headland, by ocean 
breaker swept. 

By the west wind gently wafted, a tall-sparred 
schooner crept; 

And ere had ceased the ratde of her noisy anchor- 
chain, 

At her peak streamed out her ensign — the flag 
of haughty Spain. 

Next morning, in the Mission, her commander 
and the priest 

Sat down in friendly concourse to a hospitable 
feast. 

Count Alfredo told his story — how his idol and 

his pride, 
His faithful wife, Jovina, but a week ago had 

died, 



40 Sobina 

And how the hopes that filled him of name and 

fame were gone; 
He'd lift anchor on the morrow and return to 

Spain alone. 
He had longed to bring back tidings of this 

unknown northern shore, 
But ambition had departed — he was stricken and 

heartsore. 

He would leave his Httle daughter with the padre 

till again 
A larger, safer vessel should arrive from distant 

Spain. 

Then he called the little maiden, who among the 

rose-trees played, 
And her hand within the padre's with graceful 

reverence laid. 
The good priest kissed with tenderness the sweet 

upturned face, — 
" May the Virgin help me!" said he, " I will try 

to fill your place." 

A dozen years passed over, and the padre, old and 

gray, 
Looked seaward from the Mission, for never since 

that day 



3iotJ(na 4i 

The Count Alfredo left him Jovina for his ward 
Had aught that might concern the Captain's fate 
been heard. 

And she, the fairest daughter of the Mission, like 

the rest 
Of maidens, felt love knocking for admittance at 

her breast. 
Her tender heart was given, — nay, her pure and 

earnest soul, — 
For what Spanish maid who loves well surrenders 

not the whole 
Of her being to her lover? But the youth Jovina 

loved 
By the good folks at the Mission was very ill 

approved — 
Carlos Sanchez, brave and handsome, who careful 

mothers said 
Wandered round, guitar on shoulder, when 'twas 

time to be in bed. 

The old priest, sighing, murmured: " I am full of 

years and rust, — 
Yet a few years and this chancel will open for my 

dust,— 



D 



42 Sobma 

And Jovina (who can fathom a youthful maiden's 

mind?) — 
Her fancies are as various and fickle as the wind. 
I have told her of her father; I have taught her all 

I could 
Of the fortitude and bearing that belongs to noble 

blood, 
And this Sanchez — but she loves him — " " Padre 

mio! " — at his side 
Kneels Jovina. *' Ah, my daughter, so soon to be 

a bride! 
Blessings on you, mi chiquita; may your future 

be as bright 
As yon mellow sun now bathing this dark hair in 

his light." 

Christmas Eve: The bells are ringing, and the 
Mission maids are gay 

In mantles and mantillas for Jovina' s wedding- 
day. 

It lacked an hour of sunset, when on the ocean's 
rim 

The white sails of a vessel loomed indistinct and 
dim. 

Another hour a great ship her anchor drops, and 

flies 



lobina 43 

The Spanish ensign, greeted by many wondering 

eyes. 
Padre Juan stands on the wet sands; the first that 

leaps to land 
Rushes rapidly toward him and grasps his out- 
stretched hand: 
'*My daughter?" **She is yonder," said the 

padre, with troubled face, 
And the Count strides toward the Mission in fierce, 

impatient haste. 
The news has traveled quickly, and the Mission 

maidens grieve — 
Jovina and her lover will not wed this Christmas 

Eve. 
For the bride has kissed the bridegroom she will 

never see again, 
And sleeps aboard the vessel that will carry her to 

Spain. 

The night is dark and gloomy, and the anchor 

watchmen creep 
'Neath the forecastle for shelter, where all their 

comrades sleep; 
The plash of oars they hear not, so loud the storm's 

loud wail, 
Nor see the muffled form now bending o'er the rail. 



44 iobina 

They only hear from Pinos the breakers on the 

strand, 
Nor see the tossed and spray-lashed skiff that 

struggles toward the land. 

Christmas Day, the sun dispelling the early morning 

haze, 
Gleams through the fringing pine-trees; its broad 

and golden rays 
Rest on the old church belfry, then mercifully fall 
On the long black tresses, veiling the body like a 

pall, 
Of a woman, drowned, disfigured, and cast up by 

the tide. 
And clad in wedding garments, — for Death had 

claimed a bride. 
Nor was the bridegroom wanting, — for farther 

down the shore. 
Lay Sanchez, in his death-clasp grasping still a 

broken oar. 
And all the Mission mourned them, and still old 

gossips say 
The roses bloom the whole year round, above 

their graves to-day. 



SING ME A RINGING ANTHEM 

Sing me a ringing anthem 

Of the deeds of the buried past, 
When the Norseman brave dared the treach- 
erous wave, 

And laughed at the icy blast. 

And fill me a brimming beaker 

Of the rich Burgundian wine, 
That the chill of years, with its chain of tears, 

May unbind from this breast of mine; 

For working and watching and waiting 
Make the blood run sluggish and cold, 

And I long for the fire and the fierce desire 
That burned in the hearts of old. 

I can dream of the fountains plashing 

In the soft, still summer's night. 
And of smothered sighs, and of woman's eyes, 

And of ripe lips, ruddy and bright. 

But better the tempest's fury, 

With its thunders and howling wind. 

And better to dare what the future may bear. 
Than to muse on what lies behind. 

45 



46 Mm ^t a ISiimim ^ntfiem 

Then chant me no tender love-song, 

With its sweet and low refrain, 
But sing of the men of the sword and the pen. 

Whose deeds may be done again. 



NEW-YEAR THOUGHTS 

As IN the west the evening sun goes down, 
And, dying, glorifies with varied hues 
Of gold and purple all the floating clouds 
That saw him slowly sink below the verge; 
So the old year to us — who, with a sigh, 
Mark his last hour, as tranquilly he fades — 
Leaves many a rich-hued memory behind. 

The twilight fades, the night goes by, anon 
The eastern sky is flushed with joyous clouds 
That wait expectant for the sun's return; > 

And as he climbs the blue, and gleams and glows, 
Gladdening the world and all life with the dawn. 
The clouds and peaks receive his kiss, and blush, 
So we, the fresh young New Year hail, nor grieve 
For that which in the solemn midnight died. 

The hope, the promise of some better things 
Than we have known brightens dull hearts, as when 
A sunbeam swift from parted clouds breaks forth 
O'er meadows on a fitful April day. 
Chasing the shade to hide on hills and groves. 
The buried aspirations — though their graves 

47 



48 jl5eto = 9ear ^fiottffjt^ 

Have not yet known a single season's change — 
Are all forgotten; as the child who flies 
To grasp the gaudy moth, and, failing, turns 
To pluck a flower, which seems the richer prize. 

The storm-tossed sailor, when the wave is high, 
And bitter winds, ice-laden, sweep the deck, 
In dreams beholds the tropic summer seas. 
Where gentle zephyrs, with the perfumed breath 
Of fruited woodlands, sigh through shroud and sail. 
Thus, turning from the old year's cheated hopes 
And broken promises and erring deeds, 
We look beyond to pleasant scenes and paths 
Which virgin months shall smilingly disclose. 

Come, glad New Year, unwritten scroll, white page 
Where we may write the record of good deeds 
Long left undone — annals of brave resolve. 
Accomplished by sweet patience and strong will. 
Come, glad New Year, and make us strong and true; 
And when you sink, sun-hke, below the verge. 
Be we the clouds to wear for evermore 
The golden brightness of your memories. 



FAREWELL THE PIPE 

Throw down the pipe, and let its shattered bowl 
Lie on the earth in atoms at my feet! 

Adieu the fragrant incense which my soul, 

Dark and bewildered, once found passing sweet ! 

No more shall float before my half-closed eyes 
Fair visions, mingled with its azure clouds; 

No more succeeding forms shall fall and rise 
In vapors soft, a shadowy welcome crowd. 

No more tall castles rear their gleaming walls 
With open portals and inviting ways; 

No more the drowsy hum of waterfalls, 

The memories of the rapturous yesterdays. 

No more to see, locked in the noisy town, 

Long meadow reaches, where the brooks rush by 

To meet the sea, and in a last kiss crown 
Their sacrifice and ocean's victory. 

Throw down the pipe, and with this parting plaint 
Perish the pleasures all good smokers love; 

I '11 smoke no more; I 'm training for a saint, — 
The harp and robe and purer joys above! 



49 



IN MEMORIAM 

Cherished and honored beyond all others, 

Loved and looked up to, as dearest and best, 
Noblest of natures and kindest of brothers, 

Truest of souls that a friend ever blest; 
Could you but speak to us, poor dead one, lying 

Cold in thy casket; and if it were meet 
That you could whisper us, '' Hush and cease 
sighing," 

Even our grief for you then would be sweet. 

Oh! but 't is hard to feel we, left behind you, — 

We, sore and sorrowing, here by your bier, — 
Never again in this life may remind you 

How much we worshiped you, how held you 
dear. 
Hand, cold and motionless, though we may clasp 
you,— 

Hand, true and faithful, now rigid and prone, — 
Though we may cling to you, fervently grasp you, 

No pressure shall thrill in response to our own. 

Eyelids now closed in the last solemn slumber, 
Would that beneath you our own eyes might see 

50 



In 9$tmomm 51 



One glance of the many that beamed without 
number, 
Soothing our troubles, or brightening our glee! 
Voice that once flowed like a beautiful river,— 
In song sweeter than song-birds' most exquisite 
trill,— 
How can we feel that you are silenced forever, 
Your glory departed, your melody still ? 

Ah! but we '11 keep thy grave green with love's 
fountains, 
And close in our hearts a grave greener for thee, 
With a grief that shall last, friend, as long as the 
mountains. 
As deep and unchanged as the sob of the sea. 
The heart-place left vacant shall never, oh never, 

By another be claimed, by another be filled. 
Until we, too, lie down in thy calm sleep forever. 
And our pulses, like thine, friend, forever are 
stilled. 



BY THE SEA 

The curling waves crept up the beach, 
The fishers drew their nets to land; 

Behind us lay the clover reach, 

Before us gleamed the pleasant sand. 

A deeper blue was on the sea, 

Than ever touched its waves before; 

In sweeter fragrance bloomed the lea, 
In purer silver stretched the shore. 

We sat on rocks, where time and age 
Had fretted many a curious trace. 

Her heart was mine — an open page; 
Her love was written in her face. 

A ship sailed by. The sea-birds led; 

The waters clasped her gliding form. 
'*And so shall be our lives," she said; 

"With never sorrow, never storm." . 

A black cloud darkened all the sky. 
And darkened all the smiling land; 

A sunbeam chased the cloud away. 
My love then raised her dimpled hand 
52 



T5v tit &ea 53 

And said : " If shadows chill our hearts, 
'T is aye for fear the sun may cloy; 

For when the past of gloom departs, 
The warmer glows the present joy." 



ROMANCE AND REALITY 

"Here is the bed where NelHe slept," 
She turned the snowy coverlet down; 

In through the lattice the ivy crept — 

What a blissful change from the heated town! 

"Good-night." She left me; the moonbeams fell 
On flowered carpet and dainty bed; 

I smoked and pondered, but strange to tell 
I could n't get Nellie out of my head. 

*' My aunt had never a friend," I said, 
'* Named Nell or Nellie; yet I am here, 

Seated on Nell or Nellie's bed — 

My clothes upon Nell's or Nellie's chair." 

'' ' Nellie!' — I always hked that name, — 
The gods are propitious, and I, perchance, 

Who voted the country dull and tame 
Am here beginning my life romance. 

** How fragrant this soap! And this ewer quaint 
Has the water held in which Nellie washed, — 

Nellie, whose face needs no nasty paint; 

And the basin, too, — what a pity 'tis smashed! 

54 



IBlomante anti Witalitv 55 

* ' How soft the towel ! Nellie or Nell 

Has hung it thus. What a dear, sweet girl 

She is, to be sure! And this brush! Ah well, 
I wish I could drop on a truant curl. 

" Is she a blonde? or is she a brunette? 

I 'm sure to love her! These nights of bliss 
Are made for loving. I knew that yet 

I should meet my fate in some way like this." 

I sank on the pillows. * * O dear, sweet Nell ! 

To think that your cheeks have pressed this 
down. 
And your limbs reclined here, my country belle, 

One day to be queen of my house in town." 

My sleep was broken. 'T was not the breeze 
That sighed through the trees the whole night 
long; 
I rather fear that it was the fleas, 

Though the thought seemed wicked and base 
and wrong. 

I looked in vain in the breakfast-room 
For Nell or Nellie. She was not there. 

*' Dear aunt," I said, ** are we not too soon? 
Miss Nell has not finished her morning prayer. ' ' 



56 IRomance anh Witalitv 

* ' Nellie, come here. ' ' With cheeks aflame, 
I could not raise my eyes from the floor; 

But grim was the air of the ancient dame, 
As Nellie, her poodle, came in at the door! 



ANITA 

A SOFT, dark eye — so deep, so deep, 
Its liquid depths no glance may follow; 

A face where lights and shadows creep 
O'er arching brow and dimpled hollow. 

A voice, now loud in maiden glee, 

As tides on pebbly reaches throbbing, — 

Now sorrow-hushed, as sunset sea 
In purple rays at even sobbing. 

O twining hands! O rich, dark sheen 
Of gleaming braids that crown in glory 

A face as fair as spirits seen 

In ancient books of Bible story! 

O love! O life! like generous wine — 

Like breezes from the streams and mountains. 

Thy presence thrills this soul of mine, 

Thy glances stir my heart's deep fountains. 

O love! O life! a rose, a weed. 

Touched by thy hand, my peerless beauty, 
Is cherished with a miser's greed. 

And guarded well in jealous duty. 

57 
E 



58 Sinita 

But though you 've woven warp and woof 
Into the thread of my life's passion, 

J dare not speak, but stand aloof, 

And dream and sigh — the olden fashion. 



THE ANGLER'S CONFESSION 

I 'VE angled in many waters, 

On many a summer's day, 
By many a murmuring river, 

In many a tangled way ; 
And the voice of the brook has never 

Lost pathos and charm for me, 
As it rippling runs forever 

To its grave in the mighty sea. 



These were the days the angler, 

In the flush of guileless youth, 
Told all his simple story — 

Told nothing but the truth: 
I fished the stream near the mill-dam 

Hour after hour in vain — 
I 've not a trout in my basket; 

To-morrow I ' 11 try again. ' ' 



( ( 



But now, alas! this bosom 
Is sadly changed — I fear 

I 've learned to lie like others, 
In the angling time of year. 

59 



6o fWbt ^m\tf0 €ontt0^ion 

'• Fishing? I rather think so — 

A hundred in half a day; 
Two-pounders, and strong — such monsters! 

Each took an hour to play." 

I 've learned to lie like others: 

I 've gone to the stream and found 
A small boy fishing before me; 

Then prone on the pleasant ground 
I 've lain and slumbered, and bid him 

Call me when he had caught 
Just enough to fill my basket — 

And thus my fish were bought. 

Then over my nice clean stockings 

I 've plastered the river mud, 
And the sleeves of my angling jacket 

I 've smeared with fishes' blood. 
And strolled to the ferry landing 

With a weary look in my eye. 
Then reveled for days succeeding 

In one luxurious lie, — 

How I fell from the massive bowlder; 

How I swam the turbulent brook; 
How in one pool four and twenty 

Speckled beauties I took. 



^it ^mW0 €onM0wn 6i 



Men may rave of the joys of angling, 

But let them not despise 
The pure, the esthetic pleasure 

That dwells in those angling lies. 



FALLEN 

I vow the strain from yon ball-room band, 
Which steals tender and sweet through the 
moonlight now, 
Recalls me the touch of her matchless hand, 
And the odor that breathed from her gold- 
crowned brow. 

And here alone this September's eve, 

With the moon above and within the glow 

Of that brilliant hall, I cannot but grieve 
For the queenly woman I used to know. 

For queen she was once of the fair and gay — 
Once the courted and loved of all, 

Whose light step moved like a forest fay 

Through the glare and glitter of many a ball. 

Once before her the richest and proud 
Craved a smile from those ripe red lips. 

And with courtly murmur of soft praise bowed 
To press with passion her finger-tips. 
62 



She is now \ht j^r:st of each ruffian boor, 

A stranger to all that is good and bright, — 

No longer honored, no longer pure, 
A star that has lost its luster and light. 

And the ballad you careless revelers trolled 
Was a song she loved in the golden years, 

In the sunlight days, ere a woman sold 
}lf:r soul for riot, her peace for tears. 



WITH THE DEAD 

White folds of linen on the marble face 
Lie in the silence of the coming day; 

Theflong black shadows creep with laggard pace; 
The eastern sky is marked with streaks of gray. 

O quiet dead, let but those pallid lips 

Oneyate-learned secret of the soul disclose, 

So that our wisdom may at once eclipse 
All that the sage of all the sages knows. 

O tranquil lids, Hft from those hidden eyes, 
That on their orbs our doubting eyes may see 

The graven gleams of startled, rapt surprise 
Which marked their first glimpse of eternity. 



The morning breeze sweeps thro' the solemn room 
And stirs the folds that wrap the dead around; 

The bold, broad sun dispels the chilling gloom; 
The streets are all astir with life and sound. 

Most tacit dead! has mourning love no power 
To win one accent for its many tears? 

64 



mm tje SDean 65 



Most ingrate dead! who leaves us in an hour, 
And with us leaves the grief of loss for years, 

One single word — the faintly-breathed farewell 
That failed thee as the fluttering spirit fled! 

No answer yet! Ring out the final knell! 
And, men, come in to bear away our dead. 



A CHRISTMAS DREAM 

I STOOD on the shores of the Wide Awake, at the 

close of a winter's day, 
Then I boarded my shallop and steered my course 

to a country far away; 
I was bound to the land of the Fast Asleep, my 

track in the silver beams 
Of the lustrous moon that lighted my way to the 

harbor of Pleasant Dreams. 



A Norman castle with lofty keep stands on a flower- 
ing lea, 

And a landmark bold for miles around it frowns on 
the open sea. 

I am bidden to enter the pillared hall where the 
banquet board is spread, 

And knights and ladies surround the feast, and the 
baron sits at the head. 

Stream and forest, and crag and lake have sent 
their offerings here, 

Deer and boar from the parent wood, and fish and 
bird from the mere; 

66 



Si C|)ti0tmaj5 2Dream 67 



And the wine is quaffed in mighty draughts from 

cups of silver and horn, 
As the minstrels chant in holy phrase of the night 

that Christ was born; 
And the yule-log blazes upon the hearth, and I 

mark by its ruddy flame 
A cavalier, grander than all the rest, who sits by a 

winsome dame. 

The blush is red on her lovely cheek, as he whis- 
pers low in her ear: 
" This day and night will forever be to me the best 

in the year. 
And wherever I go, and wherever I be, I swear 

on the cross of Christ 
That my soul with thine on each Christmas Eve 

will keep its solemn tryst. 
And whether I perish by heathen sword, or by 

knightly lance am sped, 
Whether we twain must live apart, or by God's 

grace we are wed, 
This night of all nights will bring me back from 

the spirit world to say 
That love is immortal and knows no death, but 

must live for ever and aye." 



68 Si CSti0tma0 2Dteam 

An English manor, and elm and oak are draped in 

the gleaming snow, 
But laughter and mirth are rife within, as under the 

mistletoe 
The daring youth leads the bashful maid, and salutes 

her hps of red — 
Lips that rival the crimson glow of the berry wreaths 

overhead. 
And the same old chant from the waits outside to 

the merry throng is borne, 
" God bless you, dames and gentlemen, on this 

night that Christ was born." 

Where have I seen this maiden's eyes, and marked 

the bearing bold 
Of that comely youth ? ' T is the dame and the 

knight of the Norman tower of old! 
Now I know that the souls of the lovers then abide 

with these lovers now. 
And I know that the knight to the peerless dame 

has kept his solemn vow. 
That on this eve of the good Christ's birth, though 

fate had parted the twain. 
Their souls in those of a later life have found union 

and love again. 



Si Cl)ti0tma0 2Dteam 69 



And now I behold in my changeful dream, by the 

calm Pacific sea, 
In a stately mansion a comely throng that surrounds 

a Christmas-tree; 
No Norman castle, no manor old, no waits on the 

snow-clad lawn. 
On this night that the shepherds saw the star and 

hailed the immortal dawn. 
But the holly-berries are bright and red,— and in 

yonder nook, I swear, 
Hand clasped in hand, and lip close to lip, sit a 

youth and a maiden fair! 

Oh, wonder of wonders! That maiden's eyes are 

the eyes of the dame of old, 
And the bold, broad brow is the brow of the knight, 

and his voice the voice that told 
His own true love that he 'd keep his tryst, and his 

fond devotion prove, 
On this night when the hearts of all mankind are 

moved to pity and love. 

Ah, who shall question those gracious things, no 

matter how strange they seem. 
Or doubt that to many the best of life is the Hfe 

they live in their dream ? 



BY THE LAKE 

O summer's day! O smiling- lake! 

O plash of wave! O pebbly beach! 
The low, sweet words that softly break; 

The thoughts too full for common speech; 

The round, soft hand that lay within 

The brown, broad palm that burned and clung; 

The heart that strove a heart to win, 

While meadows waved and robins sung; 

The memories of a golden day, — 

Of fresh spring flowers, of sun and lake, — 

Of all she would yet could not say. 
Of all I would yet could not take, — 

Are green this autumn, though the trees 
Have lost the bloom they wore and waved, 

Though many an ebb and flow of seas 

The lake's white shores have left and laved. 

The corn then peeped above the sod 

In unripe beauty, fresh and cool; 
The cautious angler swung his rod 

Above the purple-shadowed pool. 

70 



T5r> tSe Eafee 7^ 



To-day the harvest- fields are bare; 

The clover hues are gray and dead; 
The meadow-grass, where lurked the hare, 

Is gathered to the farmer's shed; 

The mottled fowl float on the lake; 

The ripples murmur in the reeds; 
The quail pipes in the sheltered ?jrake; 

The minnow darts among the weeds; 

The sky is clear, the air is pure, 

And all is sweet as when before 
The dreams, too golden to endure, 

Were dreamed beside the lake's fair shore. 



A SPANISH VISTA 

Large, lazy cattle on the hill, 

The landscape dotted over, 
The sigh of breeze, the song of rill, 

The scent of blooming clover. 

Beyond, the tired sun sinking down, 

In clouds of lurid splendor, 
And gilding all the mountain's crown 

With rays serene and tender. 

A hacienda, shaded o'er 

By oaks, which in this wildwood 
Rose high above the river's shore, 

In the Franciscan's childhood, 

Were large and strong in those old days, 

When Spanish expeditions 
Came here to plant, in tangled ways, 

The tall cross of the Missions. 

Upon the porch a maiden lies, 

And over hill and meadow 
Beholds, with calm and lustrous eyes, 

The sun-rays yield to shadow. 
72 



ja &pani!36 ^i0t^ 73 



She chants a cadence soft and clear, 

A tale of Spanish glory; 
The oaks seem bending down to hear 

The music of her story. 

I listen, and I live again, 

In twilight dream Elysian, 
That past when legendary Spain 

Made romance in the Mission. 

The song is hushed, the sun is down, 

The moon is rising slowly; 
Still on the porch the mountain's frown 

The singer shadows wholly. 

Backward and backward creeps the shade. 
By gracious moonlight driven, 

Till lightly rests upon the maid 
The silver light of heaven. 



THE FAVORITE TOAST 

Here! stop the song! Look at the clock! 

Although it's to our liking, 
The joke must wait. Ease up the talk; 

Eleven's nearly striking. 

Fill glasses for the old-time toast 

We hold above all others, 
The one we love and honor most: 

" Here's to our absent brothers." 

Good fellows all, where are you now, 
Who came with cheery greeting 

In other days, and w^ondered how 
Men thought that life was fleeting? 

There 's Charley, brightest of them all, — 

His face shines in the claret. 
He wears a smile to conquer Gaul, 

As none but he could wear it. 

Dear boy, his shadow in the glass 
Shines bright and fair and cheery. 

I almost hear the old jest passed, 
" Let's drink, and all be merry." 

74 



^it jFabotite ^oa0t 75 



And Jack, who died a year ago, 
When life was in its summer, — 

I see him in the shadow show 
A new and loving- comer. 

And good John Boyd, and Hull, and those 
Who've passed across the ferry, 

Return, as round that chorus goes, 
*' Let 's drink, and all be merry." 

Dear boys, I know not where you are. 

Nor do I care to ponder 
Upon your home in that land far 

Across the ferry yonder. 

But yet I know, where'er you rove, 

You 'd hurry out of heaven 
To drink this toast with those you love 

When clocks point to eleven. 

So we, who stand around the board, 

Remember all those others, — 
Drink deep this toast without a word: 

" Here's to our absent brothers." 



IN THE COLISEUM 

On the Campagna fell the shades of night, 
And by the yellow, full-fed stream that rolled 
On through the broad and far-extending plain. 
The herdsman shouted to his thirsty flock. 
Whose heads were buried in the Tiber's flood, 
Drinking their fill as closed the sultry day. 

An old man clad in skins, with painful step 
Walked on to where, skirting the western sky, 
Arose the tall and frowning walls of Rome; 
And by his side, guiding his feeble steps, 
A maiden whose soft cheek the sun had kissed 
Brown as the nuts on lofty Sabine hill, 
Moved, speaking words of tenderness to him. 

" Think you," he said, " that soldier's words were 

sooth. 
That he had seen amid the brotherhood, — 
Aye, in the arena,-— Faustus, my lost son, 
The handsomest and the bravest of them all, — 
Faustus, thy playmate? Surely thou must mind 
How when the Goths thy father's cottage wrecked. 
And slew him then before thy mother's eyes, 

76 



In tSe Coliseum 77 



" Faustus did bear thee, — he then but a boy, — 
Far from the bloody hearth, and guarded thee. 
And think ye now that Faustus wounds and 

slays, — 
He whose once tender hand would gently lift 
A piping fledgling from the ground and smooth 
Its tiny feathers, lay it once again 
Back in the nest it wandered from too soon ? ' ' 

The maiden shuddered. "Faustus could not brook 
The sober dullness of the herdsman's Hfe, 
And so sought Rome, where men of warlike minds 
Find ever favor in Augustus' eyes." 
Conversing thus, the twain at last drew near 
The gates of Rome, and entered and moved on 
To where the Coliseum's bulk stood out 
Beneath the shadow of the Palatine Hill. 

Struck by the maid's fair face, a soldier said: 
" You come in time, sweet one, to see to-night 
The games, for noble Caesar has decreed 
That forty of the brotherhood contend, 
And that so hotly that but one survives 
And Caesar hails above his brethren slain. 
Nay, shrink not, maiden; if thou tarriest here 
But a few months, thy appetite for blood 



78 3n tfie €oli0tnm 

Shall grow as keen as that of our fair dames, 
Who love to see a Roman's full veins bleed." 

Into the circus next day poured the throng. 
Matron and maid and proud patrician filled 
The benches rising, tier surmounting tier. 
Lictor and legionary and centurion stood 
Around the throne where haughty Caesar sat, 
Cold, like a marble god, upon his shrine. 

*' All hail, great Csesar!" rose the ringing shout, 

And then a pause, for marching on the sands. 

With gleaming shield and sword, the brethren 
came. 

*' The dying hail thee, Caesar!" Then the fray! 

Steel rings on steel, swords clash, the sands are 

dyed 

Red with the blood of slaughtered men, and still 

The sinewy arms rise high to smite and thrust, 

And women's cheeks are flushed, and languid eyes 

Flash into life to see this reign of death. 

But two are left. They meet — their blades are 

crossed ! — 
*' Faustus!" — above the mighty din is heard 
The girl's wild scream. One of the twain looks 

back. 



Jin tit Coliseum 79 

Ah, fatal pause! his foeman's blade falls swift, 
And prone he lies upon the crimson sands. 
Pitiless Caesar to the earth points down. 
And then the gladiator's restless heart, 
Which wearied of the quiet herdsman's life, 
Had ceased to beat. 

A few hours later, when the games were done, 
Upon those benches where the plebeians sit 
They found a lovely maiden cold in death. 
Her head was pillowed on an old man's breast. 
He, too, was dead, and none their story knew. 



THE STATE-HOUSE BELL 

(1776) 

Standing proudly on the threshold of her fruit- 
ful hundred years, 

The youngest of the nations lifts her head among 
her peers. 

Pointing backward to the patriots that mark her 
century's tide, 

With the laurel on her fair brow, she names their 
deeds with pride; 

And the old theme that so often has been told and 

read and sung: 
How the great bell of the State-house, from its 

ponderous brazen tongue, 
Sonorous rang its tidings — with quick pulse and 

moistened eye 
Was hailed a nation's birthday in memorial July. 

But never can the story be too often wreathed in 

verse, 
And never can historian too oft the tale rehearse — 

80 



^6e fetate = Ifeoude 15t\l si 



For the old to bid them gladden, and be strong 

and stout of heart; 
For the young to let the future see them act as well 

their part; 

As a requiem for the warriors whose blood baptized 

the sod; 
For the statesmen whose wise counsels broke British 

rule and rod. 
In the belfry stand the ringers — hangs above the 

silent bell — 
Their arms are bared, their eyes gleam, they love 

this duty well. 

Without, the eager people sway and murmur like 

the sea; 
Within, the statesmen listened to the words that 

made them free. 
The noonday sun is blazing; but greater than its 

heat. 
And fiercer, is the fire within those hearts upon the 

street. 

So grave and so determined, with bent brows and 

lips compressed. 
Toward the meeting-house the eager mass, with 

steady purpose, pressed. 



82 (W^t state ^^0tt0^ ffidi 

Maid and matron, age and childhood, gaze with 

anxious look on high, 
Where the massive tower, gigantic, looms against 

the summer sky. 

''Oh, this weary expectation! How the minutes 

drag along ! ' ' 
Hush, good friends! You '11 be rewarded with the 

richest, rarest song 
Ever rung from brass and iron. Hush! be still 

and hold your breath ! 
On the swinging of yon metal hangs our country's 

life or death! 

' ' Have they signed it ? " " Not all ! Hear them — 

they are still in hot debate! 
Oh, pass on, you sluggish moments, and let us 

know our fate! " 
Then the waiting throng is silenced — over all a 

stillness fell; 
When clang! clang! from the steeple peals the 

thunder of the bell. 

Hear its grand reverberations swelling o'er the 

anxious town. 
Bringing joy to all the people, bringing sorrow to 

the crown. 



^tt ^tate-'^oMt ISell 83 

Hand grasps hand with warmest pressure. " Ring 

out, ringers, well and strong! 
Ring in the joys of freedom — ring out the woes 

of wrong! 

"Ring right lustily, my brave boys! The great 

pledge signed to-day 
Shall be sealed with freemen's best blood in many 

a fiery fray. 
Ring out, and never weary, — for children yet 

unborn 
Shall bless the glorious music you 've made for us 

this morn.*' 
No sooner was the peal stilled, than burst the bell 

in twain — 
After such a lofty message it could ring no meaner 

strain. 

Nigh a hundred years 'tis silent, but the memory 
of that chime 

Shall echo on forever until the end of time; 

Echo on through other nations, bidding other hearts 
rejoice, 

And like it, in Freedom's honor, lifting up a peo- 
ple's voice. 



THE LAND OF THE NEVER WAS 

I BOARDED my ship and I sailed away 

With never a sigh or pause, — 
Away, away, to the rim of day, 

And the land of the Never Was. 

White were my sails as the soaring gull 

That followed me o'er the sea; 
The breeze was strong with never a lull; 

And the only crew with me 

Were my hopes and dreams of another shore, 

A port of refuge and rest, 
Around the cape of the Evermore, 

In the land of the Golden West. 

Land ho! land ho! and the anchor falls 

Deep in the purple tide. 
From the bordering, the towering walls 

Face me on either side. 

And my ship is safe in a sheltered bay. 

And only, from miles afar. 
Is heard in the hush of the twilight gray 

The surf on the harbor bar. 

84 



And now as I step on the shining sand, 
There comes to the peaceful shore, 

With kindly faces and outstreiched hands, 
From the land of the Nevermore, 

The noble souls from the Never Was, 

This isle in the purple sea, 
Who have framed its tender and kindly laws, 

To give this welcome to me. 

There never has been in the Never Was, 
Since the birth and beginning of time, 

A friend that was false, or a maid untrue, 
Or the faintest shadow of crime. 

There never has been a pang of pain, 

Or a human heart gone wrong, 
And the echoes of life have been the strain 

Of a sweet, harmonious song. 

And nobody toils from the early light 

To the dusky close of day. 
In this beautiful land of glory and right, 

Where my anchored vessel lay. 

They gave me a palace of towering height, 
With meadows and woods and streams. 



And my house was peopled with fancies bright, 
My hopes, and my noontide dreams. 

The shriek of the tempest, the breaker's shock 

As it foams on the iron shore, 
And my ship is lost on the cruel rock, 

Off the Cape of Evermore! 

And the beautiful land of Never Was, 
With its great souls fresh and free. 

Are buried with me and my gallant ship, 
Deep in the purple sea. 



TWO RIVERS 

As THE lark from his cosy nest 

Welcomed the morn, 
Fresh from the mountain's crest, 

Twin streams were born. 

Through deep vale and wooded dale, 

Meadow and lea, 
One singing merrily, 

Gushed to the sea. 

Through bleak waste and arid plain, 

Cheered by no song, 
Far from the waving grain, 

One toiled along. 

And one stream the sunlight 

Tinted with gold. 
While gloomy clouds, black as night, 

The other enfold. 

But when the evening sun 

Sank in the west. 
The sea caught the rivers both 

Home to her breast. 
87 



88 'JEtOD UMt0 



And the song of the river 
That burst o'er the lea, 

Has been hushed for all time 
In the moan of the sea. 

And the wail of the river 

That toiled through the plain, 

In nature's wild throbbing 
Will ne'er sound again. 

Our lives, like these rivers, 
Howe'er they be cast, 

In the grave, the great ocean, 
Find nepenthe at last. 



DROWNED 

On the bosom of the river 

Dainty moonbeams gleam and quiver; 

TrembHng forms shrink and shiver, 

Gazing on its silver sheen. 
There is peace and calm forever: 
Bonds of sin may solve and sever 
In a journey with the river, 

Through its willow banks of green. 

PalHd faces are uplifting 

To the moonbeams, glint and shifting; 

Stiffened limbs are drowned and drifting 

Underneath the rusthng trees. 
For, while all the world was sleeping, 
Found a tired heart rest from weeping; 
Sought the river sadly creeping 

Towards the moan of distant seas. 

Never more the pain of losing, 
Never more the chill refusing. 
Never more the deadly choosing 
Of the sin and taint of care; 



90 SDrotoneti 

Past the days and nights of longing, 
Past the sense of wrong and wronging, 
Comes the deadly sleep belonging 
To the erring ones that were. 



NATURE AND MAN 

The moon is dawning, the west is darkening, 
A sighing sound haunts the bodeful air; 

The forest pines appear hushed, and harkening 
Like living forms, for vesper prayer. 

Their leaves are sparkling, but not with gladness: 
Who readeth well what their sheen bespeaks 

Will deem those pearly, pale dews of sadness 
Most like the tear-drops on weepers' cheeks. 

The knelling fall of the mournful waters 
Floats down the dell like the saddest song, 

As though the flood's fabled fairy daughters 
Bewailed some victim, or deed of wrong. 

And as the gold of the sunset slowly 
Decays and darkens till all hath fled, 

Those tones appear to unite in holy 

And choral swells for the lost and dead. 

Is this illusion? A poet's dreaming? 

An airy legend from Feristan ? 
Or are the thoughtful more wise in deeming 

That Nature may sometime mourn with man ? 

91 



MARRIAGE A LA MODE 

Harry, old fellow, the other day 

The wedding-bells chimed for a girl we knew — 
A boarding-house beauty, with golden hair, 

And the dainty complexion, and eyes of blue; 

And the bridegroom proudly stood at her side, 
And the parson pronounced them man and wife; 

But I thought, when I looked at the stately bride, 
Of those days when she made a part of your life. 

And I wondered if, laid away in your trunk. 

Are those letters I 've carried by dozens to you, 

When she was your sweetheart, and you believed 
There was none in the world so fond and true. 

The groom, poor mortal, believed, no doubt. 
That he was the idol of that heart's shrine; 

But I could have sworn her thoughts were afar 
With you, in your ship on the sultry line. 

Well, the wedding presents came thick and fast. 

I did as you told me. The opal ring 
I gave her, saying: *'A leaf from the past. 

From an absent friend, by request I bring." 

92 



Sl^artiaffe a la 9?otie 93 

She smiled and laughed and admired the stone, 
And turned to her husband; but well I knew 

What it cost her to stifle an agonized moan, 
When she placed on her finger her gift to you. 

Farewell, dear fellow ! ' t is best as it is — 
But be sure of this: that she 'd rather be, 

Though rich her husband and proud her home. 
With you to-night on the lonely sea. 

Since the fates have willed it, she '11 live her Hfe 
With the man of money — he 's good and kind; 

But whenever she looks at that opal ring 
She ' 11 grieve for the Eden she left behind. 



DIGMAN PASHA 

* ' General, dismount ! ' ' The warrior laughed, 

And stroked his beard, and laughed again. 
"What! I, who danger's draught have quaffed 

On many a hard-fought battle-plain, 
Dismount because the balls are flying ? 
I 've seen the Russian squadrons hying 
Before our Moslem's troops in force, 
And never yet have left my horse." 

A bullet strikes the grand old man, 

A shell beneath him plows the ground; 
He, smiling, says, ''Life's but a span," 
And binds his scarf about the wound. 
"General, dismount!" He called back, "Nay, 
I 've lived through many a bloody fray, 
And while the crescent floats on high, 
I ride as Moslem should — to die! 
For Allah and the Sultan yield 
My life, if needs, on this red field!" 

Another volley ! That bold breast 

Is bleeding now! The gleaming sword 

Falls from his nerveless hands, — the best. 
The bravest, die for faith and lord. 

94 



SDifftttan Paisfja 95 

As Digman Pasha's old gray head 
Lies on a mourning comrade's knee, 

He whispers ere the soul has fled, 
'' Abdul, I die for faith and thee! " 

As long as valor wins a name 

To glisten upon history's page, 
As long as soldier' s cherished fame 

And great deeds live from age to age, 
Let Digman Pasha's name have place 
Among that gallant Moslem race, 
Who never fail when called to stand 
And battle for their native land ! 



TOM MOORE 

The legends were dim and forgotten, 

Neglected the heart and unstrung, 
And the sad, sweet lore of the nation 

Grew strange on her children's tongue, 
When out of the ranks of the people 

Sprang a bard, like the flash of a blade, 
And the world stood passive, and wondered 

At the weird, sweet music he made. 

As the west wind, that breathes of the summer, 

Wins the chilled buds to fragrance and bloom. 
So the strains of the God-gifted comer 

Won the genius of song from its tomb ; 
From the old abbeys, ruined and hoary, 

From the castles that frowned o'er the sea. 
He wove a romance and a glory 

As he chanted the hymns of the free. 

What pathos he wrung from that shattered, 

That time-worn harp, when again 
He swept its strings, breathing of sorrow, 

Of love and oppression and pain — 
96 



^om 9^oott 97 



Of pain and of passion the deepest — 
Like wine, in the ripeness of years 

The richer, because of the glimpses 
Of smiles through its burden of tears. 

It began, as the promise of dawning 

Empurples the clouds of the night; 
It grew till, like landscapes at noontide. 

The land was aglow with its light. 
To-day it is mellow and tender, 

Half mirthful, half sad, and all pure. 
As it teaches the children of Ireland 

To be faithful, and strong to endure. 

In the far batde- fields of the stranger, 

By the camp-fires of France and of Spain, 
On the eve of the morrow of danger. 

The bivouac rang with its strain, — 
Now low, like the summer tides throbbing 

On the beaches of Ireland, and then. 
Like the winter gales, raging and sobbing 

In the hearts of those strife-worn men. 

O bard of our own land, thy laurels 

Are brighter than ever to-day. 
As we tread the dark pathway of sorrow, 

And struggle towards Liberty's ray, 



98 %om 99oott 



For the songs you have taught us have cheered us; 

And when we have conquered, be sure 
The first toast, the first pledge of our fi-eedom, 

Shall be to thy memory, Tom Moore! 



WANDERERS FROM THE SEA 

Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy! Speeding hither o'er the 
foam, 
With the waters white before thee, and their spray 
upon thy deck, 
Steer you steadily, and surely, for you bring our 
treasures home, 
As the harbor-bar you pass o'er, safe from storm 
and wreck. 

Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy! when the winds about our 
dwelling 
Blew fierce, and told disaster, our hearts were 
out with thee; 
Far from shore our hearts were drifting o'er the 
ocean wildly swelling, 
To the ship that bore our treasure, far, far out 
upon the sea. 

Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy! long and wearily we've 
pondered 
On the dangers of the tempest, and the cruel 
rocks a-lee, 



loo dfllantiftetisi ttom tit &ea 

And the ship that braves the billows, for had that 
good ship foundered, 
Our hearts, O gallant vessel, had gone surely 
down with thee. 

Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy! the links that long have 
bound us 
Stretch farther than the farthest shore, reach over 
every sea; 
Were thy homeward coming never, the years would 
still have found us 
Looking seaward for thy lofty spars, and waiting 
on the quay. 

Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy! thou art welcome to thy 
mooring, 
Whether outward bound or homeward, our good 
wishes are with thee. 
May you ride out many a tempest, and shun rock 
and reef, secure in 
Our blessings, that you brought us our friends 
safely o'er the sea! 



LA GRIPPE 

Happy the man who, on a gloomy day 

When the streets are mud and mire, 

Can put the business of the hour away, 

And before a blazing fire. 

Sip to his heart's desire, 

Even as he gazes on the crackling log, 

The hottest kind of grog. 

Not to the millionaire alone does fate vouchsafe 
For rain and cold this pleasant recompense; 
Philosophers of ripened common sense 
Can tranquilly surrender business obligation, 
And put (such is the great law of life's compensa- 
tion!) 
Upon their doors, while they the goblet sip, 
" Gone home to bed: La Grippe." 

Though churchyards fatten, and the doctor sees 
With each declining sun increasing fees, 
For many more than plausible apologies, 
We are indebted to La Grippe. 



I02 3ta (Btippe 

The florid face which follows terrapin, 
The morning of the night of song and gin, 
We place (alas, for man's mendacious lip!) 
To that convenient visitant, La Grippe. 

Why reeled the model citizen, the man whose mind 
Is ne'er to pleasures bibulous inclined? 
Is that demeanor staid upset by wine? 
He '11 tell you, *' Whisky— whisky and quinine, 
For grippe, the doctor said." He took it; life 
Must be preserved, though an indignant wife 
Might scold a man with bitter, biting word 
For coming home, his starboard tacks aboard. 

For various kinds of ailments doctors pour 

Into the patient horrid, nauseous doses. 

Which make the nurses gasp and -hold their noses, 

And tear the victim to his bosom's core. 

They leech and blister, and in other ways 

Inferno's margin with their tortures graze; 

But in the grippe changed is the painful scene, 

And the afflicted sips with brow serene, 

His medicine which naught his soul distresses. 

His only mourning when he convalesces. 

Nor finds in grippe the welcome, dear excuse 

That friend afforded for his daily booze. 



MUTATIONS 

" Non semper agros manat in hispidos^ 

The darkest shadows at times are lifted, 
The clouds not always obscure the sun; 

The hardest burden is sometimes shifted, 
The hardest toiling is sometimes done. 

The stream that flows from distant fountain. 
Now through desert and now by lea, 

Though wide the plain or steep the mountain, 
Sooner or later must reach the sea. 

The gales of winter that shake the forest 
Give place in spring to the softer wind; 

The wounded hearts that have ached the sorest 
In the changeful future their solace find. 

Did spring last ever, 't would lose its sweetness; 

If flowers bloomed always, we'd cast them by. 
'Tis change that makes the world's complete- 
ness — 

The sweetest laughter succeeds the sigh. 



103 



THE WAITER 

No cross he bears, nor ivory beads; 

At matin chime he says no prayer, 
Nor text, nor hymn from volume reads, 

Nor bends the knee with saintly air. 

He kneels in no confessional, 
The penitent's sad tale to hear, 

Nor on his hand, in blessing reached. 
There falls the sinner's heart- wrung tear. 

And yet he knows so much — so much. 
That tall, grim waiter, mild and gray, 

That homes would wither at his touch, 
And vows dissolve had he his say. 

But yet he speaks not. On his lips 
The seal of silence rests supreme; 

The crowds that nightly come and go 
Are but the shadows of a dream. 

The song, the jest, the wine, the kiss. 
The plighted promises, — to him 

Are fancies all, with naught amiss. 
But phantoms, undefined and dim, 
104 



<^fit Wiaittt 105 



Of worlds outside his narrow sphere, 

Of worlds where boisterous cohorts move- 

And all are near and all are dear, 
And every chant's refrain is love, 

And every vow is emphasized. 

With bubbling wine and beaker quaff; 

And all by chastity most prized 
Is greeted with the scoffing laugh. 

tall, grim waiter, few indeed 

Can hear so much and yet not speak. 

1 pledge thee, for thy noble creed, 

The golden silence of the Greek. 



H 



ONLY A WOMAN'S FACE 

Only a woman's face 

Seen in the Latin quarter, 
Maybe a fisherman's child, — 

Maybe a scavenger's daughter. 

But eyes of infinite depths, 

Not easily forgotten, 
And a figure of queenly grace, 

Though clad in a gown of cotton. 

Ah! far away in the past. 

When Spain was in its glory, 

Some lord of that mighty land 
Whispered love's tender story 

Into the wilHng ear 

Of a dame, whose great-granddaughter 
In her cotton gown to-day 

Roams through the Latin quarter. 

For never from lowly race 

Sprang maid so sweet and winning. 
Perhaps the ring, perhaps 

The tale of passionate sinning. 

io6 



flDnl^ a (lflloman'0 JFace 107 

It matters not to me; 

Never again I 've sought her, 
Like the dream of a pleasant hour 

Is this queen of the Latin quarter. 



MONTEREY 

In a mantle of old traditions, 
In the rime of a vanished day, 

The shrouded and silent city- 
Sits by her crescent bay. 

The ruined fort on the hilltop 
Where never a bunting- streams, 

Looks down, a cannonless fortress, 
On the solemn city of dreams. 

Gardens of wonderful roses, 

Gimbing o'er roof and wall, 
Woodbine and crimson geranium. 

Hollyhocks, purple and tall, 

Mingle their odorous breathings 

With the crisp, salt breeze from the sands. 
Where pebbles and sounding sea-shells 

Are gathered by children's hands. 

Women, with olive faces, 

And the liquid southern eye, 
Dark as the forest berries 

That grace the woods in July. 

io8 



9$onttttv 109 

Tenderly train the roses, 

Gathering here and there 
A bud— the richest and rarest — 

For a place in their long, dark hair. 

Feeble and garrulous old men 

Tell, in the Spanish tongue, 
Of the good, grand times at the Mission, 

And the hymns that the Fathers sung; 

Of the oil and the wine, and the plenty, 
And the dance in the twilight gray — 

''Ah! these," and the head shakes sadly, 
"Were good times in Monterey!" 

Behind in the march of cities — 

The last in the eager stride 
Of villages born the latest — 

She dreams by the ocean side. 



FAREWELL 

Dear friend, kind friend, and must we say farewell, 
And break that circle, comrade, which so long 

Has held us, brother, in its pleasant spell — 
A loving, faithful, merry-hearted throng? 

Death claims his own; we mourn, we pray and trust, 
And softly praise the dead, but yet we know 

When nature summons us again to dust. 

We, too, along the drear, dark path must go. 

But when we feel that though the sun-rays fall 
Upon us living, though when stars are bright 

We gaze above and say: " He now sees all 
The mellow beauty of this summer's night; 

** Still he is absent, and his cheering voice 
Is lost to us, as if our friend were dead; 

Though he may grieve, and we, perchance, rejoice. 
And he rejoice while we are sad instead; 

"We know not; for, alas! between us lies 
A barrier our thoughts alone may span. 

What matter to us stars, or glowing skies, 
Since we have lost of men the truest man ? ' ' 



Jfacttoell III 

The circle narrower grows. Ah ! what is wrong 
In this strange world, that partings are so rife? 

For ere are hushed the echoes of the song, 
There comes the dirge and bitterness of life. 

The breeze that creeps through aisles of woodland 
shade, 
When day is done, bringing delicious balm, 
The cooling mist that freshens all the glade, 

The wave-borne lights that gleam when seas are 
calm, 

Are grand, rich blessings in creation's plan 
From the Beneficent who reigns above. 

But greater is the love of man for man — 
The love exceeding woman's rarest love. 

Such is our love. And never better placed 
Was man's affection since the Persian youth. 

Beneath the tyrant's footstool strong, embraced, 
Glorying in death for friendship and for truth. 

The morning sun that climbs the eastern sky 
And fades at evening in the crimson west. 

Though grand at noon its luster to the eye, 
Its last light is the fairest and the best. 



112 ifatetoll 

And thus our love. In its meridian heat, 
In all the warmth of its noontide power, 

Has never seemed so dear, so sadly sweet, 
As in the twilight of this parting hour. 

And now, farewell ! Night may give place to dawn. 
And birds sing on, and autumn crown the land; 

But what care we when you, our friend, are gone, 
And but the last clasp of your faithful hand 

Left as a memory of a golden scene. 

On which the curtain all too early fell — 

The sad awakening that succeeds the dream 

Of severed ties ? Farewell, dear friend, farewell ! 



THE DEAD WARRIOR 

Muffle the drum, let the musket point downward, 
Twine crape in yon banners, — the soldier lies 
low! 
His hands shall no more draw the sword from its 
scabbard. 
His wan lips no more cheer his men on the foe. 

Oh, what a harvest that great soul is reaping. 
The grandest, the rarest a soldier e'er won: 

For, behold, a whole nation lies prostrate and 
weeping 
At the bier of its savior, its warrior son. 

What shall we say of him? How tell his story? 
Who shall be worthy to hear of his glory ? 
How chant the praises of him who is gone? 
Who blazon the deeds that our soldier has done ? 

Ye, who have marched with him, camped with him, 
fought with him, 
On plain and on mountain -side, swamp and 
redoubt. 
Ye who have thrilled at the voice of the leader, — 
Comrades of Grant, it is time to speak out! 

"3 



114 %it 2)eati ^Ifllatrior 

Tell of the soul that knew no hesitation, 
The warrior born, a stranger to fear. 

The sun in the gloom of the land's desolation, 
That banished the tempest, and brought her 
sons cheer. 

Who now dare murmur a word of disfavor ? 

Who breathe a slander to tarnish his fame ? 
Who grudge a tear to the country's savior? 

Who not bend low at the sound of his name ? 

Soldiers of Grant, who went down in the battle, 
Whose bones have long moldered in the South 
and the North, 

Come from your graves! 't is no musketry's rattle 
That bids you, dead heroes, arise and stand forth. 

Come in your shadowy, awful battalions, 

For the hand of the leader is waiting for you, — 

You who met death when he bade you, and flinched 
not, 
The valor he trusted, the brave hearts he knew. 

'Mid the muffled drum's beat and the wail of the 
bugle. 
And the swell of the organ in mournfulest song, 



%fit SDeab WLaniot 115 

Comes the murmur of these, the Republic's dead 
soldiers, 
Whose legions outnumber the sable-clad throng. 

And sentries, unseen, by his grave will pass slowly, 
Side by side with the living who honor that rest. 

Let us go — for the slumber of heroes is holy; 
They who died at his bidding have loved him the 
best. 



THE WORKERS 

Ours is the earnest strife, 

Who write and think, 
And press the grapes of Hfe 

That you may drink. 
We lay our dearest treasure 

Before your feet. 
Nor pause the gift to measure, 

So it be sweet. 

When we the work have wrought, 

And gained the goal. 
And wrung the glowing thought 

From burning soul. 
To you the key is given 

That we have won; 
No heed how hearts be riven, 

So it be done. 

Our offspring born in fears, 

For you to toil, 
Rewarded us with tears — 

You with the spoil. 

ii6 



Wbt dfllotftet^ 117 

Our homes are gaunt and bare — 

Yours rich indeed; 
And yet we smile at care — 

Such is our creed. 

We only lip the brink — 

You quaff the whole; 
What need to brood or think — 

You have our soul. 
We only reach the door — 

You gain the aisle. 
Our hearts are sad and sore, 

That you may smile. 

Our cheeks are pale and wan — 

Yours flushed with health; 
And still we struggle on, 

But not for wealth. 
That you may read and learn, 

And gain in mind — 
For this we toil, nor turn 

To look behind. 

And if we dream at all, 

Or dare to trust, 
The boon is very small: 

That our poor dust 



ii8 ^5e Motftetjaf 

(When weary brain is calm, 
And peace is met ) 

The friends we gave the palm 
Shall not forget. 



INTO GOD'S HANDS 

Into God's hands, than yours, which bore 
Through dreary years the martyr's crown, 

The placid face that never wore 
The shadow of rebelHous frown. 

When airs were soft, I 've seen you lie 
On slopes that overlooked the sea. 

With poet's speech and kindling eye 
Dwelling on all its mystery. 

In rustling leaf, in song of bird, 
In pipe-quail from the wooded hill, 

The glory of a song you heard, 

Which seemed your inmost soul to fill, — 

Until you overflowed with song, 

And I, reclining at your side, 
Have marked its torrent clear and strong, 

And drank the sweetness of its tide. 

What loss is ours, who ne'er can place 
Another king upon thy throne. 

Nor looking on that tranquil face. 
Bask in a sunshine all its own! 
119 



I20 Unto (Koti*0 !&anti0 



O soul, whose wealth of charity 

Was boundless as the waves, and grand 

As the tall hills you loved to see 
Loom high above the level land! 

O heart, as warm as is the beam 

That lights the landscape where you caught 
In many a pleasant noonday dream 

The beauty of the poet thought! 

Shall we no more, when toil and grief 
With iron bands our minds oppress, 

Gather from thee a kind rehef, 

Reflecting thy great peacefulness? 

Your grave shall be a double one — 
One for the soulless, perished clay, 

Where through the hours the generous sun 
Shall shed its brightest, warmest ray, — 

The other, in our breasts, a shrine — 
A shield against the cold years' rust, 

For memories for our love and thine 
Till heart and shrine with thee are dust. 



THE COLOR OF GOLD 

Cheer up, old friend, and forget the past, 

The months of discomfort, disease, and cold. 
Come, look in this [)an — we 've struck it at last! 

Here, my boy, is a color of gold. 
Color of gold! Ah! three years ago, 

In the season when daisies their sweets unfold, 
I said, " Farewell! 't is the hour to go," — 

And I kissed her ringlets — the color of gold. 

We 've worked together, Jim, side by side. 

In snow and in rain, as men work for life — 
I for a sunny-haired, blue-eyed bride. 

You for your winsome and waiting wife — 
And though others around us made their pile. 

Ever to us fell the barren claim. 
Patient endurance and ceaseless toil 

Availed us nothing — luck was the same. 

But we never lost heart; for well we knew, 

If prayers for the wanderers are heard in heaven — 

The sweetheart's for me, and the wife's for you — 
That were each hour for our safety given. 



122 %fjt Color of (Boltr 

Would sooner or later turn the tide, 

Bring us out victors at last in the strife — 

Give to my arms the trusting bride, 
Give to your arms the faithful wife. 

Oh! the sweet home meadows, the blithe brown 
brook, 
That caught its tints from verdure and sky; 
The old bent willow, that sheltered the nook, 
Where in drowsy noontime we used to lie; 
And beyond the river, the reaches of sand 

Which the west wind flecked with the yellow 
spume; 
The jagged reefs, where the tall rocks stand. 

With their rough breasts bared to the breakers' 
fume! 

But we never lost heart; for well we knew. 

If prayers for the wanderers are heard in heaven — 
The sweetheart's for me, and the wife's for you — 

That were each hour for our safety given, 
Would sooner or later turn the tide, 

Bring us out victors at last in the strife — 
Give to my arms the trusting bride. 

Give to your arms the faithful wife. 



MISSION DOLORES 

Away from the din of the city, 

From the mart and the bustling street, 

Stands the old church of the Mission, 
With the graveyard at its feet. 

Here alone in the silence and shadow 

The crumbling belfries cast, 
Lie the dust of the Spanish founders 

Who reared the pile in the past. 

The willows and tall marsh-mallows 
Grow rank and luxuriant between 

The monuments moldered and ruined. 
The pathways neglected and green. 

There are curious Spanish inscriptions 
On the headstones, moss-grown and gray, 

Bidding those who stand over the sleepers 
*' Be thoughtful and pause to pray." 

And sometimes a Spanish woman, 
Veiled and dark-eyed and brown, 

When the Angelus peals from the belfry. 
By the graves of her people kneels down, 
123 



124 ^i00wn 2DoIott0 

And tells her beads with devotion 

For the sleeper's eternal rest, 
Then noiselessly passes outward, 

With a flower from the grave in her breast. 



THE SINGER 

(to ina coolbrith)* 

I HOLD that every brook that flows 
From mountain crest, by dale and glen, 
Now near, now far from haunts of men, 
Now where the gnarled alder grows, 
And swift by ferny banks again, 
Then slow o'er shallows on the lea, 
As loath to meet the yearning sea, 
Calls to the poet, " Come, old friend, 
And chant a song in praise of me. 

** Sing of the tiny crystal well, 
Deep hidden in the jealous earth, 
From which I take my feeble birth, 
But gather strength and vigor; sing 
A song in praise of every spring. 
Tell of the sun's hot kisses; say 
How moonbeams steal at close of day 
To tell me that they love me best 
When my bold lover seeks the West, 
And in their silvery arms caressed 
His fevered kisses fade away. ' ' 

* Written for the occasion of the Bohemian Club's testimonial to 
Ina Coolbrith, and read by Mr. O'Connell in person. 

125 



126 ^|e &mget 



I hold that every forest tree, 

Sedate and grand in solemn mood, 

Arouses from its solitude 

And rustles all impetuously 

Its myriad leaves, when, dreaming, strays 

The poet into woodland ways; 

And bids the breeze to give it voice 

To bid a dreamer to rejoice. 

And sing its generous shade, its grace, 

A jewel in the earth's fair face, 

Its foliage green, — till men depart 

From noisy street and toilsome mart 

To bless the trees with praiseful heart. 

I hold that even the restless sea, 
In all its power and majesty. 
Craves from the poet's soul a song. 
Bids him forget the bitter wrong 
Of strong ships cast on iron coast 
To sands which cast them back again. 
To show how futile, weak, and vain 
Man's skill its fury to enchain; 
Bids him forget, and chant the sea 
Its glory and tranquillity, 
Its likeness to eternity. 



^^t &ing:er 127 



A sweet and true interpreter 

Stream, wood, and sea have found in her 

We honor now; for she can read 

In nature's book, the lay of lays, 

The lessons of the flower and seed, 

The song of songs, until we raise 

Our dim, sad eyes from grosser things 

To brighten as the poet sings. 

She tells us what the sea has told 

Her watchings on the sands of gold. 

The language of the murmuring leaf, 

The rustle of the yellow sheaf, 

To her are true and clear and plain, — 

And, drinking in her joyous strain. 

We bid her sing and sing again. 



THE LAST POOL 

Through the murmuring sycamore branches 
Swept the breeze from the south, fresh and cool, 

And the hues of the leaves, autumn-tinted, 
Lay in trembling sheen on the pool. 

The song of the stream had been silenced 

In the heat of the summer past, 
And in all the bed of the river 

This leaf-shadowed pool was the last. 

This last, lone pool of the river, 

In the shade of the sycamore-tree, 
To the heart of the man world-weary 

Had a type and a likeness for me. 

When the heats of passion are over, 

And hope gives way to distrust; 
When the brightness and joy of existence 

Are dimmed with canker and rust; 

Though all may seem arid and worthless, 

And the founts of feeling be dry. 
There is still in the soul, close guarded, 

Remote from the passers-by, 

128 



Wbt JL^0t Pool 129 



One spring, which wears all the freshness 
Of the days when the heart was green — 

One spot, like the pool in the river, 
Fair and pure in its shadow and sheen. 

When the traveler, footsore and weary, 

Comes suddenly, unprepared. 
On a river pool, lonely and lovely. 

Which the heats of summer have spared, 

His heart is filled with thanksgiving. 
And he blesses the path which led 

His steps to this secret beauty 
In the sandy river-bed. 

So, when the human-hearted 

Find, in the darkest breast, 
This spring, which has never yielded 

To the heats that consumed the rest, 

They bless the hope it brings them: 
That the showers will some time come, 

When the silent current of feeling 
Shall no longer be dry and dumb. 



DEAD IN THE MINE 

Fire and death in the mine! 

Weeping" and woe, 
Women with pallid faces, 
At the mouth of the shaft above, 
Asking for those they love, 

Hurrying to and fro. 

Thank God for this: "All saved! 

Welcome to life ! ' ' 
All ? Oh, horror, that cry — 

Hold the poor wife! 
' * They are not — they are not! Ye he! 

Jem's in the mine." 

•' Back, lads — Jem 's my mate." 

Forward he broke. 
Lower him — ''Steady, boys, now!" 
Into the smoke and the fire, 
Now climbing higher and higher, 

Into the mine. 

130 



2Deal3 m ttt 9$int 131 



A roar and a shock, and lik*: thund'rr 
The timh>erh are torn asunder. 

Death in the mine! 
Tread softly, oh men, and :-peak lov/ — 
A hero is lying below. 

Dead in the mine! 



THE OLD SAILOR 

He is tawny and bronzed with the fervor 

Of summers in tropical lands; 
His arms are powerful and brawny, 

Like a vise-grip the clasp of his hands, 
And an odor of tar and tobacco 

Is perceived round the place where he stands. 

He tells of the wonderful islands 

Embosomed in southern seas, 
And of marvelous matters in China — 

Of typhoons, and Mandarin teas, 
And of shores where the barbarous natives 

Live, like birds, in the branches of trees. 

He can boast of a brush with the pirates, 
When he captured a murderous crew 

A mile off the coast of Sumatra, 

And himself a bold buccaneer slew — 

And he shows you the scar on his shoulder, 
To convince you his yarn is true. 
132 



%it SDlh bailor 133 

And when strolling along by the shipping, 

With anger he's ready to choke 
At the iron and composite vessels 

That were better of teak and stout oak, 
And he swears that their silly inventor 

Was a pig-headed, ignorant bloke. 

I am fond of this honest old sailor. 
With his whimsical nautical tales — 

His shooting of tigers in India, 
His capture of monstrous whales, 

And the spectral ships that have passed him 
Without rudders, or seamen, or sails. 



ON THE BANKS OF THE NILE 

You ask me whence this silver ring, 

Where serpents intertwine, 
An odd, antique, and fragile thing. 

Of quaint and strange design. 

A hundred miles from Thebes, or more, 

On Nile's banks, one day, 
A Nubian maiden gave this ring 

And stole my heart away. 

She watched her father's herds — I came 
And begged a cooling draught; 

She hid her face with virgin shame 
While I the water quaffed. 

Somehow — I know not how, I swear — 

The incident occurred; 
Though she was dark, and I was fair, 

And not a single word 

She spoke, was understood by me. 
Nor knew she Saxon tongue. 

But we were quite alone, and she 
Was graceful, kind, and young. 
134 



flDn t6e IBanfe^ of t6e BUt 135 

And so we fell in love outright, 

And while the Nile rolled by, 
Her Nubian eyes were sweet and bright, 

And soft her maiden sigh. 

Of course, we '11 never meet again; 

And yet I often think 
Of her, and love's delicious pain 

By Nile's level brink. 



OUTCAST 

Out on the pavement, foggy and damp, 
Streams the brilHant glare of the lamp, 
And the homeless, shrinking, hungry tramp. 
Whose haggard features bear the stamp 

Of sin and ruin and crime, 
Peers through the blinds at the glittering throng, 
And rapt in the music and blaze and song, 
Forgets her harvest of sorrow and wrong, 

In a dream of the olden time. 

And the windy streets are fields and woods. 
And she hears the ripple of pleasant floods. 
And the shadowy houses are fields in May, 
And the foggy night is a summer's day. 

And the old love-tale is spoken. 
But the hand of the officer warns her on, 
The dream has vanished, the joy is gone. 

The spell of the past is broken. 



138 



ROVER 

In a grave unmarked by stone or mound, beneath 

a tall fir-tree, 
Lies the dust of one for many years a faithful friend 

to me; 
No guile dwelt in his dark brown eye, his heart was 

solely mine — 
A great big heart of fire and love which ached to 

give some sign 
Beyond the province of his race, to show how much 

he loved 
The hand that fed him morn and night, the accents 

that approved 
The steady point, the quick retrieve, and all the 

canine lore. 
My poor friend's pride on hot hill-side, or on the 

wintry shore. 

He scorned the cur of low degree, but still was ever 
kind, — 

For Rover, though of noble birth, possessed a 
gentle mind, — 

But to his peers the threatening growl and gleam- 
ing teeth displayed, 
139 



OUTCAST 

Out on the pavement, foggy and damp, 
Streams the brilHant glare of the lamp, 
And the homeless, shrinking, hungry tramp, 
Whose haggard features bear the stamp 

Of sin and ruin and crime, 
Peers through the blinds at the glittering throng. 
And rapt in the music and blaze and song. 
Forgets her harvest of sorrow and wrong, 

In a dream of the olden time. 

And the windy streets are fields and woods. 
And she hears the ripple of pleasant floods. 
And the shadowy houses are fields in May, 
And the foggy night is a summer's day. 

And the old love-tale is spoken. 
But the hand of the officer warns her on. 
The dream has vanished, the joy is gone, 

The spell of the past is broken. 



13S 



ROVER 

In a grave unmarked by stone or mound, beneath 

a tall fir-tree, 
Lies the dust of one for many years a faithful friend 

to me; 
No guile dwelt in his dark brown eye, his heart was 

solely mine — 
A great big heart of fire and love which ached to 

give some sign 
Beyond the province of his race, to show how much 

he loved 
The hand that fed him morn and night, the accents 

that approved 
The steady point, the quick retrieve, and all the 

canine lore. 
My poor friend's pride on hot hill-side, or on the 

wintry shore. 

He scorned the cur of low degree, but still was ever 
kind, — 

For Rover, though of noble birth, possessed a 
gentle mind, — 

But to his peers the threatening growl and gleam- 
ing teeth displayed, 
139 



I40 IRober 

Declared that if they cared for fight, why, he was 

not dismayed. 
No woman gentler than he, no woman's ways more 

mild, — 
A lion to his foes, to me as playful as a child; 
And when the world looked black and strange, his 

eyes on mine would rest, 
So full of love, I ' d swear he knew the sorrow in my 

breast. 

And when my poor dog passed away, I dug his 

grave alone. 
Beneath a tall fir's kindly shade, unmarked by 

mound or stone. 
But in my heart the sense of loss was keen and 

bitter pain, 
Nor do I blush to own my tears fell on that grave 

like rain. 
Sometimes, sometimes I dare to hope in that 

mysterious land, 
That when the veil is rent aside, and all may 

understand, 
The soul-gem in that casket, so great, though 

humbly set, 
Has not perished with the clay, — so he, my dog, 

may greet me yet. 



TREES 

Kissing the streams 

As they glide toward the sea; 
Shading the wild flowers 

That grow on the lea; 
Telling, in murmurs, 

A tale to the breeze; 
Friends of humanity. 

Beautiful trees! 

Trees of the forest, 

Majestically grand; 
Trees by the castle, 

The pride of the land; 
Trees guarding kindly 

The laborer's door; 
Knowing no level, 

No rich and no poor. 

Trees of the lonely. 

Untenanted glen; 
Trees of the city, 

'Mid bustle of men; 
141 



142 %ttt0 



Trees sadly waving 

'Mid homes of the dead, 

Tenderly shading 

Each slumbering head. 

On hill-side or forest, 

In village or glen, 
Your presence is ever 

A blessing to men; 
Your rustling voices. 

When zephyrs are near, 
To each tells the story 

He longs most to hear. 

To lovers you whisper 

Of dear joys to come; 
The wanderer listens 

To breathings of home, 
The poet dreams fondly 

Of laurels to win; 
And you speak to the fallen 

Of mercy for sin. 

And thus we may gather 

Good words from your leaves, 

And drink in the lessons 
That flow from the trees; 



%ttt0 143 

And, like you, growing higher 

Each day from the sod, 
So may we, grown purer, 

Draw nearer to God. 



THE TRUE PHILOSOPHER 

I HOLD the true philosopher 

Not he who wears a solemn frown — 
Who speaks alone of those who err, 

And swears the world is upside down ; 
Who aims at every shining mark 

The shafts of wisdom tipped with hate — 
Who walks forever in the dark, 

And deems men's lives are ruled by fate. 

But he who looks across the tide 

Of troubles incident to man, 
Still seeking on the other side 

Fulfillment of some bounteous plan — 
Who feels men's hearts are made of stuff 

That should resist each petty grief. 
And bravely turns from each rebuff 

Unconquered in his strong belief. 

Who mourns not for the olden time, 
Declaring, with a somber sneer, 

The world is more debased with crime, 
And life more wretched year by year, 
144 



%it %mt P5ilo0op5et 145 

But boldly says that men to-day 

Are nobler than they ever were, 
And doubts this doctrine of decay — 

He is the true philosopher. 

The cynic's crown is lightly won, 

And simple are his scornful ways, 
For, ever since the world begun, 

'Tis easier to rail than praise. 
A moment — you may cloud the stream, 

And dim its rippling breast with clay. 
But it will wear its silver sheen 

Again the livelong summer's day. 

The morning sun that lights the grass 

With diamond flashes from the dew. 
The morning winds that, as they pass. 

Waft dreams of flowers the lattice through. 
The morning hopes that fill the heart 

And all its thrilling pulses stir, 
When on to bear his earnest part 

Goes forth the true philosopher, — 

Are deep, convincing evidence 

That smiles befit us more than tears — 

That, call it fate or providence. 

Some mighty power directs the years; 



146 ^atfie ^mt pstlaisiopjtt 

And if we take the good and ill, 
And chide the cynic's heresy, 

With humble faith and steadfast will, 
We have the true philosophy. 



MISSION ROSES 

"Padre mio, by the Carmel grows the pallid 

Mission rose, 
Snugly sheltered by the willows, where the shallow 

river flows. 

'* Let me gather some, my father, for our pleasant 

home to-night. 
See, the sun has but just vanished — there is plenty 

time and light. 

"I will shun the quicksand, father, and return to 

kiss you soon; 
Mission roses should be gathered by the twilight or 

the moon." 

Then Don Ramon's only daughter kissed the old 

man's withered Hps; 
Deftly rolled the cigarito in her dainty finger-tips, 

And Don Ramon, smiling, took it from her tiny 

dimpled hand, 
Wondering where a woman fairer could be found 

in all the land. 

147 



148 9$i00ion Wio0t0 

' ' Mission roses should be gathered by the twilight 

or the moon," 
Hummed the old ranchero's daughter, to a gay 

Castilian tune — 

A roundelay that often, in proud, romantic Spain, 
Brought blushing face to lattice, smiling from the 
window-pane. 

But 't is not to gather roses by the moon or waning 

light, 
That Inez, the dark-eyed darling, leaves her father's 

porch to-night: 

Flowers of passion — poisonous blossoms, fatal to 

a maiden' s breast — 
Flowers that wither when we grasp them, are the 

senorita's quest. 

Dense and tall the sheltering willows that line the 

Carmel's bank; 
Ferns and mosses grow between them among 

grasses long and dank; 

And 'mid all, the Mission roses, pure and pallid as 

the snow. 
Fill the air with tender fragrance by the current's 

quiet flow. 



9^i00ion ISio^t^ 149 

*' Mi querida, alma mia, Inez mia !" And her face, 
Quickly to her lover's lifted, meets his quicker, 
fond embrace. 

The hours wear on. She lingers till the August 

moonlight falls 
On the river, on the roses, on the Mission's massive 

walls. 

Flowers of passion! Ah, poor roses! — 'mid the 

willows you may bloom; 
Never Inez's hand shall pluck you by the twilight 

or the moon. 

Many days and nights passed over, but never any 

more 
The erring feet of Inez passed Don Ramon's arched 

door. 

But long after, when the strong walls were leveled 

to the ground, 
And the Mission bells were silent, and the house a 

nameless mound, 

A woman, wan and stricken, prone upon the ruin 

lay. 
And moaned and wept and muttered, and kissed 

the crumbling clay. 



I50 9^i0^ion lR00t0 

And sobbed out her life in sorrow for the shame 

of twenty years — 
When she left to gather roses, and found disgrace 

and tears. 



THE REFUGEE 

A VARYING scene of mist and sun, 

Of sleeping bay, and purple hill; 
And thither, when the day is done, 

And all the noisy world is still, 
And men sit down by happy hearths, 

And merry voices fill the air, 
And night's dark mantle folds the earth, 

I come, a refugee from care. 

I come: the hacienda's door 

Is opened wide, its master stands 
Upon the threshold, and warm hands 

Clasp mine — a welcome, o'er and o'er 
Repeated, bids me cast away 
The cares and cankers of the day. 

The calm of softly flowing tides 
By moonlight silvered, visits me; 
I gaze, and gather from the sea 

A peace which in my soul abides; 
And like the sea-bird, storm-tossed, 

That seeks at last the sheltering rock, 
151 



152 %it Wittnm 



And safe from all the tempest's shock, 

Sleeps high above the foam-lashed coast, 
I fold my wings; — shine on, pale moon, 
The day of parting comes too soon! 



IN MEMORY 

When the toiler in the morning goes forth to sow 
the seed, 
His brown hands full of garnered grain, and his 
footsteps free and bold. 
Through all his weary labor he is thinking of the 
meed, 
When Autumn's russet mantle shall the teeming 
earth enfold. 

The ploughshare shapes the furrow, the seed is 
scattered wide, 
And the winter rains fall kindly upon the thirsty 
field. 
And the toiler's heart is gladdened, as he contem- 
plates with pride 
The rich reward of labor the harvesting shall 
yield. 

Midst the singing of the sailors, across the harbor- 
bar, 
The tall ship moves, her gliding keel the foaming 
waters spurn, 

153 
K 



154 In 9^tmotv 



And many watch her progress, and bless her from 
afar — 
Their farewells filled with yearning for the noble 
bark's return. 

But by the storm that gallant ship is stricken, and 
the wreck 
The hurricane has driven upon the iron shore, 
And drowned men are lying upon her shattered 
deck, 
And they who watched her from the port shall 
never see her more. 

And the harvest for the reaper is naught but tare 
and weed. 
For the heavens withheld their moisture, there 
was naught but drought with frost; 
There is no single blade of corn that born is from 
the seed, 
And the labor of the husbandman is futile all, 
and lost. 

But patiently he sows the grain and trusts another 
year, 
And gallantly another ship goes forth upon the 
sea, 



3In 9^tmotv 155 



And the sailor's sturdy bosom a stranger is to fear, 
And the husbandman looks forward to his harvest 
from the lea. 

Ah! such was he, the statesman, the great, the 
honored dead. 
Who for many a well-sown harvest reaped naught 
but tare and weed, 
Saw many a gallant ship go down, but never bowed 
his head. 
Still sending ships upon the sea, still sowing the 
good seed. 

O mind above all selfish ends! O true, majestic 
soul! 
In the hour of party triumph you passed away 
to God; 
And the bells that rang out psean were mingled 
with the toll 
Of the funeral bells that thrilled us when they 
placed you 'neath the sod. 

Beyond ambitious promptings, beyond the fair 
reward 
Of those who loved and praised him, he held the 
Nation's peace, 



156 In 9?tmotp 



And he drank the bitter chaHce, and though the 
task was hard, 
He calmed an angry faction, and bade the storm 
to cease. 

O patriot heart! that steadfasdy in that fierce, 
threatening time. 
When wrong was bold and rampant, and when a 
single word 
Would have plunged the land in conflict, with sac- 
rifice sublime, 
Resigned thy well- won laurels, and sheathed the 
half- drawn sword. 

Thou art gone from us, the leader, the learned, and 
the sage, 
After years of fruitless sowing you saw the har- 
vest wave. 
In the story of our statesmen thou shalt have a 
brilliant page, 
And a Nation, not a party, shall weep above thy 
grave. 



THE ROSE AND THE WIND 

THE WIND. 

I KISS thee, Rose, invoking gentle showers, 

And dew and rain, 
And tender growth, that morning's sunny hours 

Be not in vain. 

THE ROSE. 

Thy kiss is death — a deadly, poisoned greeting, 

Thou Winter Wind! 
Go! pass me by, and cease thy wild entreating; 

Be not unkind. 

THE WIND. 

Alas! my Rosebud, dost not remember 

The glowing day 
I pressed thy lips with kisses tender — 

Only last May? 
I was a Zephyr then — the South my mother; 

My breath so sweet. 
You cried: *'0h, cease; my perfume, love, you 
smother. 

Too fond you greet. ' ' 
157 



THE ROSE. 

Your kiss, O Wind, in May came with a blessing; 

'Tis not a blight. 
With joy I hailed your sensuous caressing 

Through all the night. 

THE WIND. 

The bird awakened from his evening slumber, 

And cried: "Desist! 
Shame on thee, Rosebud! Zephyr, can you number 

How oft you've kissed?" 
Were you but faithful — though my kiss the urn 

To clasp your dust — 
You ' d cry, * ' Old friend, your memories sweet I 
burn; 

With love I thirst!" 

THE ROSE. 

Tho' death should follow — one kiss for the olden, 

The vanished May! 
And let it be sweet, as in sunsets golden — 

The self-same way. 

O power of love! O power of faith and duty! 

The kiss was given; 
And, soft, the true soul, grand in dying beauty, 

Passed up to Heaven. 



ALONE 

Here we are seated, you and I, 

The blinds drawn close, the waiter gone, 

And yet you glance at me and sigh, 
And wish that we were not alone. 

With abstract air you sip the wine, 

Toy with your glass, your eyes downcast, 

Those troubled eyes will not meet mine, 
And yet the time is speeding fast. 

At last you speak, — a commonplace. 

I answer in the same dull tone; 
But still I cannot read your face, 

And we are quite alone. 

The tumult of the clamorous street 
Is borne toward our listless ears. 

O moments that should be so sweet! 
O idle hopes! O foolish fears! 

The silence grows. Was it for this 
We were so bold, we dared so much? 

Not one dear word, not one fond kiss, 
No tender glance, no loving touch. 

159 



i6o jSLlone 

Was it for this we dared and schemed ? 

An hour of silence — are we changed ? 
Is this the meeting so long dreamed ? 

What spell has thus our souls estranged? 

What is it that repels us ? Why 

Do we forget the vows of old ? 
Her lips are opened but to sigh, 

And we are both so cold. 

She glances at her watch. ' ' And now, * ' 
She murmuring faintly, " we must part." 

I rise and touch her chill, pale brow, 
I mark the beating of her heart. 

I know we stand upon the brink, 
I know that fate our paths divide, 

I know we never more may drink 
The chalice now we push aside. 

Yet hand in hand we slow descend 
The stairs, the last of all the guests: 

One farewell clasp. She whispers, ''Friend, 
' T was for the best,—' t was for the best' ' 



BERRYING 

The berries stained her dimpled face, 

And dyed her white dress here and there, 

As standing, with a laughing grace, 
She twined the tendrils in her hair. 

The brambles round her fondly clung — 
I envied branch and thorn that day — 

The very woodland, when she sung, 

Seemed hushed, and listening to her lay. 

The pines, that lined the shadowed lane, 
And grew far down the rugged brake. 

Had changed their weird and sad refrain 
To one glad paean, for her sake. 

The purpled lips, so full and sweet; 

The dainty hand, so round and fair — 
I could have fallen at her feet, 

In worship of her, smiling there. 

Another June, and in the wood, 
Among the berries in the lane, 

I stand where once my idol stood, 

But where she ne' er shall stand again. 

i6i 



i62 T5tnvim 

Comes from the pines a dreary dirge; 

Comes from the sea a solemn moan; 
And, oh! your waihng, wood and surge, 

Is but an echo of mine own. 



THE ANGELUS 

When the Angelus bell is ringing, 
And the shadows are creeping down, 

A far-off echo is bringing, 

Distinct 'mid the hum of the town, 

A silvery voice, which sayeth, 

*« O friend, when the Angelus tolls, 

And the pious, on bent knees, prayeth 
For the peace of translated souls, 

•• For thee my voice will be given. 
My prayers for thee will ascend 

To the loftiest vaults of heaven, 
Beloved and cherished friend." 

When the Angelus bell is ringing 
From belfries high in the air. 

On swift pinions my soul is winging 
Its way to that friend in prayer. 

'Mid all Hfe's tribulations, 

'Mid its worry and crosses and pain, 
Comes this reigning consolation, 

This sense of immortal gain: 
163 



i64 %it Simt\U0 



That whether my burden be shifted 
Or no, there is one who prays, 

Whose gentle voice is uplifted 
For my welfare in thorny ways. 



IN SIR HUMPHREY'S HALL 

Outside the castle shrieked the wind, 

The snow was on the moor, 
God' s mercy ! ' t was an awful night 

For homeless, wandering poor. 

But in Count Humphrey's hall, the logs 

Blazed high upon the hearth, 
And all about the vassals thronged 

To share his Christmas mirth. 

Ye wassail-bowl, filled to the brim. 

Went merrily around. 
And all was jest and mirth within, 

Though snow lay on the ground. 

The waits had sung their greeting song 

Outside the castle wall. 
And bidden now the guests among. 

They sat within the hall. 

But though the songs are loud and high 

Within that vaulted room, 
There 's sadness in Count Humphrey's eye, 

His soul is filled with gloom. 
165 



i66 3tt &ir ^nmvittf0 ^M 

Nor is the fair dame by his side 

Less sorrow- touched than he; 
What burden rests upon their pride 

' Midst all this revelry ? 

For Humphrey's lands are broad and fair, 

His vassals stanch and true, 
Nor, Alice, dwells in English bowers 

A fairer dame than you. 

The harper of that ancient house 
Then swept the plaintive chord, 

Yet, when the last strain died away. 
The Count said ne'er a word. 

Dame Alice spake: '* Play, harper, now 

That old and touching strain, 
Of that young knight who long had sought 

A lady's hand in vain. 

"And how, when in the battle shock 

Before the infidel. 
With her sweet name upon his lips 

The hapless lover fell. 

* ' And how he sent her back her gage 
With his life's current dyed. 



In ^it ^nm}^iuf0 l^all 167 

And how she wept and begged our Lord 
For mercy for her pride." 

The harper played, and while the song 

With sorrow filled each soul, 
A maiden, fair as poet's dream, 

Into the great hall stole. 

Her hand about Count Humphrey's neck 

She placed with gentle grace, 
And lightly bent to press a kiss 

Upon his troubled face. 

The melody was done, the bowl 

The applauding henchmen drain. 
"Sing me," quoth moody Humphrey then, 
'* Sing me another strain.'* 

From a dim corner in that hall. 

Where armored figures stood, 
A youth arose, in monkish garb 

Arrayed, but cowl and hood 

Seemed ill to suit his martial air. 

And when his voice was heard, 
A hush upon the soldiers fell — 

None spake a single word. 



i68 In &it l^umpjte?*0 =^aU 

Count Humphrey's brow grew black as night, 

His daughter's face grew white, 
Dame AUce gazed in wonderment, 

When 'neath the cresset's Hght 

The singer stood, and then he told 

A tale of love and faith: 
How, facing the fierce Saracen, 

A Knight had courted death. 

But though, when wounded on the field, 

A blood-stained gage he sent, 
To her he loved, to her whose pride 

Had caused his banishment, 

He lived to seek her father's hall. 

And keep his knightly word, 
That he would win his lady's love. 

And win it with his sword. 

The singer paused, and while appalled 

The henchmen all were still. 
From castle-keep the great bell tolled 

Its message of good- will. 

*' Put ye away," the priests intone, 
* * All things of hate and scorn, 



3n &ir ^umpjtt^'0 ^a\\ 169 

Peace and good-will to each to-night — 
The night that Christ was born. ' ' 

Down through that vaulted chamber 
The Count's fair daughter moved, 

And kissed the singer's lips, that all 
Might know the man she loved,. 

Then, as he knelt before her. 
Once spurned, but now adored,. 

The massive arches echoed back 
The message of the Lord. 



GOD'S FORGOTTEN POOR 

When the feast is piled on the table, and the 

holly hangs over the door, 
Whose heart shall go out in yearning for God's 

forgotten poor? 
Is it he of the close communion, the Christian 

smug and sleek, 
Who struts the aisle in his broadcloth, caressing 

his smooth, plump cheek? 
Who sits in his pew, soft-cushioned, while the 

well-paid parson above 
Discourses in polished phrases of Christ and the 

Saviour's love; 
Who shudders whenever the harlot crosses the 

good man's path, 
And whose God is a grim avenger — a God of 

reprisal and wrath ? 
Not he, so enfolded and sodden, so steeped in 

his self-conceit, 
That he'd spurn the penitent woman who knelt 

at the Saviour's feet. 
Who are the chosen of Christ, then, and who 

forgotten by him ? 
170 



(Boti*0 JFotffDtten Poor 171 



O Pharisee, Christ-detested, over thy pathway 

dim 
And strewn with the bigot's error, forever the 

cloud is rolled — 
Aye rolled, and dark, and threatening, as in the 

days of old: 
Is yon shivering pauper, begging his way from 

door to door — 
Is he, O Pharisee, counted of God's forgotten 

poor? 
Is this woman, wanton and noisy, whose shout- 
ings disturb the street, 
One of the sinful outcasts the Saviour used to meet, 
And bless, and forgive, and warn to go and sin 

no more? 
Ah, then, who shall dare to name them as God's 

forgotten poor? 

Who are the God- forgotten ? Who at this season 

of peace 
Sip no goblet of loving pleasure, know not the 

pulse increase, 
But, cold and custom-ridden, self-worshiping, bend 

the knee 
To a Christ of their own devising, but not — 

ah, no! not He, 



172 (B0ti*0 jFotptten Poor 

Who courted no rich man's favor, but the lowly 

and poor caressed, 
And who pillowed the vagrant and weary on his 

holy, loving breast. 

If to-day the Christ, the preacher of the Sermon 

on the Mount, 
Were to seek the gospel he uttered at the Chris- 
tian's boasted fount, 
And clad in his humble garbing, the temple's 

threshold gain, 
And see on its summit the emblem of his sacrifice 

and pain. 
Who would stand round about him? — the poor 

he loved of yore? 
Would the Pharisee lead the Pauper beyond the 

temple's door 
To a seat near the gaudy altar ? He 'd spurn 

him, and bend the knee 
To crave from the Christ of his fancy the grace 

of humility. 

These are the God-forgotten, these of the church, 

whose store 
Is filled to nigh o'erflowing, but who still are 

sadly poor. 



(I5oli*0 jforgottm ^oot 173 



Poor and bereft of the feeling, that even the out- 
casts know — 

The joy in another's pleasure, the grief in 
another's woe; 

These, the stony-hearted. Christian by rite and 
rules, 

With faith in their world-taught wisdom, are of 
all others the fools. 

Pharisee, furs and diamonds thy poverty flaunts 
the more; 

Thou, indeed, art the pauper of God's forgotten 
poor. 



THROUGH SUN AND CLOUD 

A LONG, low wharf, with ruined planks, 
The swift tide eddying under, 

The clouds above, in gloomy ranks. 
All charged with rain and thunder. 

The skiffs of fishers sailing by, 
To the shrill blast careening, 

The dense fog 'twixt the sea and sky. 
The bay shore densely screening. 

And we, hand clasped in hand, behold 
The gathering tempest's warning, 

And mark the west, all ribbed with gold. 
The rock above still scorning. 

"Behold," I said, "far in yon west, 
That shrouds the sun in glory. 

Defiant of the tempest's crest. 
The reflex of our story. 

"The threatening cloud, the flying mist. 

Beyond it soars unheeding; 
The sun and ocean will have kissed. 

Despite its angry speeding. 

174 



^StottffS &ttn and Cloub 175 

"And so our love, — beyond the rim 

Of storms it glows forever; 
Nor rolling clouds nor fog-wreaths dim 

The sun and sea may sever. 

' ' For when that veil the west line hides, 

We know the current flowing 
Will mingle with the distant tides 

In yon fair sunset glowing." 



THE DEATH-LIST 

If in the morning papers should appear 
My name within the list of those departed, 

Would Smith, whose weeds I smoke, look sad and 
drear. 
Forbear to laugh that day, nigh broken-hearted ? 

Would other customers, beholding him — 

A melancholy monument of woe. 
His tie untied, his bright eyes red and dim, 

Spots on his shirt, and mud-dabs on his toe, 

Inquire, " Oh, Smith, what ails thee, tearful lad? 

Why weepest thou, who 're wont to be so gay ? 
Let 's shake the dice; 'tis foolish to be sad; 

Did some fair damsel flout thee yesterday? " 

Would Smith reply, the while he shakes his head, 
And on his cheek a big tear courses down, 

"I'm sad because Jestiferous is dead; 
He bought from me since first he came to town" ? 

Would Smith do this? I do not think he would; 
I think he would not curb a single jest; 

176 



^fjt S>tati''lLi0t 177 

He 'd tie his tie, he 'd show no speck of mud; 
No care would bide in his dishonest breast. 

If in the morning papers Bob, who twists 
My daily toddies into pleasant shapes, — 

Bob of the skillful toss and dexterous wrist, 
So proud withal of every drink he makes, — 

Should see my death, would Robert drop a tear 
Into the cocktail ? Would his master-punch 

Lack lime or sugar ? Would life be so drear 
To Robert that he could not carve the lunch ? 

For soda water would he ope champagne ? 

Serve gin for whisky, and Martell for rum ? 
Make juleps with a face of keenest pain, 

And say, "Jestiferous hath made me glum " ? 

Faith, I think not. The brigand would pursue 
His grinning, mixing, deep, concoctions way; 

Passing the glasses to the festive crew. 

Without one thought for my poor drinkless clay. 

And as the hearse passed by, and o'er the stones 
Made melancholy rumble, Bob would swear, 

The while his nimble fingers shook the bones. 
He'd shake a full and pulverize two pair. 



178 die SDeatS-Eiisit 

And thou, Mignon, if, when the evening fell, 
No lover's footsteps to thy bower came, 

Thy mat unscraped, unrung thy hall-door bell, 
And no fond voice to call upon thy name, 

Wouldst weep, sweet one, and wear a bit of rue 
Upon thy breast for that true lover gone, 

And for one week look sad, or even blue. 

And mourn that fate had left thee quite alone? 

Faith, I think not. You 'd find another beau; 

Eat oysters with another, gaily mark 
The bubbles of the rich wine's amber flow, 

In those dear hours when dawn dispels the dark. 

These things considered, on my word, I think 
I ' d better for the present shun that list, 

Smoke and make love, have Robert mix my drink, 
For fear that when I die I sha'n't be missed. 



MY FAVORITE BOOK 

Of all books in my library, the one I cherish most 
Is a book of ringing poems, and I read them 
o'er and o'er; 
They sing to me of woodland, they whisper of the 
coast, 
When I watched the sounding river dash its 
waters on the shore. 

' T is a fly-book, old and battered, and to its covers 
cling 
The scales of good fish captured in riffle and in 
pool; 
And when I part those covers, the birds begin to 
sing, 
And the south wind on my forehead blows 
lovingly and cool. 

And the low of homing catde is borne up the lea. 
How the murmur of the river is musical, yet 
strange, 
For the voice of running water has ever been to me 
A monition of the progress of that mighty law of 
change, 



179 



i8o s?p ifabotite 3ooli 

Saying, Come into the woodland while thy heart 
doth still retain 
Its buoyancy and freshness, and breathe these 
pleasant airs; 
To all men comes that moment when nothing will 
remain 
Of the memory of the past time but its worries 
and its cares. 

I look into my fly-book; 't is a gallery to me 
Of pictures of old places, old streams, old bat- 
tles, when 
The strong fish leaped and bounded in his struggles 
to be free, 
And I fought him through the river, past the 
bridge and up the glen. 

Thus, when weary of the city, and tired of other 
books, 
I gaze into my fly-book, and lo! is with me now 
The voice of homing cattle and the murmur of the 
brooks. 
And Mother Nature's greeting is pressed upon 
my brow. 



AFTER DEATH 

I WONDER, love, if after death 

You and I shall sit together 

Talking of our earthly days, 

Of the pleasant woodland ways. 

Where we 've walked, in soft May weather, 

Drinking in the violet's breath. 

I wonder, love, if after death 
You and I shall still remember 
Gusty evenings in December, 
When we spoke of old-time places, 
With the firelight on our faces, 
And the wind shrill on the heath. 

Can it be that we shall meet, 
Knowing God, but not forgetting 
This orb, in its starry setting. 
With its June suns and its sleet. 
After death ? 

Will your face, love, then be fairer; 
Will your voice be sweeter, rarer; 

i8i 



i82 mttt SDeatfi 



Will your step be dearer, lighter; 
Will your eyes be bluer, brighter, 
After death ? 

Oh, if cold should be our meeting — 
No clasped arms, and no Hps greeting, 
Woe no human tongue could utter, 
Dread no mortal voice could mutter, 
Would be death. 



THE CENCI 

The Cenci's face I 'd seen. ... A moment after 
In a dim room a sweet face looked at me. 

An artist's room, — an hour of joy and laughter, 
Forgetting care; yet 'mid the gay crowd's glee, 

The oval face, eyes filled with mournful longing. 
My own did greet, and all about did seem 

As if the grief to Cenci's soul belonging 
Did mirror it, as in a shadowed dream. 

Sometimes I think the souls of those departed, 
The souls and sorrows of the lost to earth, 

In other forms, all buoyant and free-hearted. 
Asylum find, and mark another birth. 

If that was so, those eyes so brown and tender. 
That mild, sad look, that calm and touching 
gloom, 
That round, sweet face, that figure lithe and 
slender. 
Would seem to me the Cenci's living tomb. 

The saddest things in life are aye the sweetest; 
The funeral bells exceed the wedding chime; 

183 



i84 ^it €tnti 

The best of joys are those that are the fleetest; 
The dullest pleasures those which challenge time. 

O haunting eyes! O face so full of sorrow 

Of some grief borrowed from the mystic past! 

May fate ordain for thee each bright to-morrow, 
Nor clouds thy maiden pathway overcast! 



THE SOUTH WIND 

South Wind, South Wind, hearken to the flowers. 
Hearken from the hillside, hearken from the plain: 

Whither stray the cloudlets, burdened with the 
showers, 
Lingering, O South Wind, with the laggard rain? 

Are the summer islands, gemming azure waters, 
Blessed with thee, O South Wind, whispering to 
the palms? 
Murmuring to the tropics' red and purple daughters, 
Drinking in their breathings, rich in Eastern 
balms ? 

South Wind, South Wind — mariner and maiden, 

Sailing on the ocean, waiting by the strand, 
Woo thee from thy dwelling, woo thee from thy 
Aiden; 
Welcome to the South Wind from the aching 
land. 

South Wind, South Wind, never prayer ascended 

From the weary watchers by the glassy main, 

185 
M 



1 86 %it feoutS Wiin^ 

With more earnest pleadings than the longing 
blended 
Of the thirsty herbage, parching on the plain. 

Hearken to his sighing, mourners in the meadows; 

Group the swollen cloudlets o'er the arid sky; 
Falls upon the valley, soothing, welcome shadows; 

Quivers every leaflet — for the rain is nigh. 



THE DRAYMAN 

The Captain that walks the quarter-deck. 

Is the monarch of the sea; 
But every day, when I 'm on my dray, 

I'm as big a monarch as he. 
For the car must slack when I 'm on the track, 

And the gripman's face gets blue, 
As he holds her back till his muscles crack. 

And he shouts, " Hey, hey! Say, you! 
Get out of the way with that dray ! " * * I won' t ! " 

' * Get out of the way, I say ! ' ' 
But I stiffen my back, and I stay on the track, 

And I don't get out of the way. 

When a gaudy carriage bowls along 

With a coachman perched on high. 
Solemn and fat, a cockade in his hat, 

Just like a big blue fly, 
I swing my leaders across the road 

And put a stop to his jaunt. 
And the ladies cry, "John, John, drive on!" 

And I laugh when he says, ** I caun't." 

187 



i88 f^^t SDra^man 



Oh, life to me is a big picnic, 

From the rise to the set of sun; 
The swells that ride in their fancy drags 

Don't begin to have my fun. 
I ' m king of the road, though I wear no crown, 

As I leisurely move along, 
For I own the streets, and I hold them down. 

And I love to hear this song: 
" Get out of the way with your dray!" " I won't!" 

* ' Get out of the way, I say ! ' ' 
But I stiffen my back, and I stay on the track, 

And I don't get out of the way. 



MARKET-DAY 

See Maggie in the morning spring up and seize 
her basket, 
While Alice, drowsy Alice, lies prone between 
the sheets; 
But Maggie, rosy Maggie, the household queen, 
whose task it 
Is to go to market, trips along the silent streets. 

Fair goddess of the dawning, the opening buds, the 
grasses. 
All glistening in the night dews, are not fresher 
than her face; 
The birds, but half- awakened, salute her as she 
passes, 
The tall trees bend in homage to her beauty and 
her grace. 

As she moves among the farmers, they know well 
that the cherries 
Wear no hue that can be likened to the ruby of 
her lips. 

189 



igo S^arfeet^SDa^ 



Mark the snowy hand that picks out the largest, 
ripest berries, 
Staining with their crimson juices her dainty- 
finger-tips. 

They look after her and bless her, — and the coin 
her hands have clung to 
Is cherished as a talisman from one so fair and 
bright. 
Were yon rustic but a Cory don, he surely would 
have sung to 
This Aurora buying butter in the early morning 
light. 

Were I thy lover, Maggie, they should paint thy 
picture, dearest, — 
Not dressed in gleaming satin, the splendor of the 
feast. 
But arrayed in market costume, the same plain dress 
thou wearest, 
With thy pouting lips preparing yon golden roll 
to taste. 



THE LOVING-CUP 

I FOUND in an attic closet, by hands long vanished 
placed, 

A goblet dinted and olden, with antique figures 
chased. 

With reverential fingers I lifted the relic up, 

For two hundred years had faded since was fash- 
ioned that Loving-Cup. 

With fragrant and rich Burgundy I filled it to the 

brim, 
And as I gazed upon it, in the twilight somber 

and dim, 
The bells from the distant steeple rang faint o'er 

moor and fen 
Their joyous Christmas greeting, "Peace and 

good will to men." 

While looking into the goblet, pale shadows 

thronged the room — 
Shadows of men and women moved through the 

gathering gloom; 

191 



192 %lt Eobinff'Cup 

And I knew by the flowing love-lock, as one of the 

shades drew near, 
That the phantom my fancy conjured was a stately 

cavalier. 

Lofty and free his bearing, gallant and full of 

grace, 
And rich were the chestnut curls that framed his 

warrior face. 
"My faith, but the gods are gracious!" he cried, 

as he marked the wine. 
" Come hither, Dorothy, pledge me; come hither, 

sweetheart of mine.' ' 

Then by his side a woman in riding-habit and 

hood. 
With a face like a rosebud glowing, and eyes like 

the bright stars, stood; 
There was love in the glance uplifted to his tender, 

passionate gaze. 
And I felt I was reading a chapter from a romance 

of old days. 

One hand the cup encircles, one arm her waist 

entwines. 
He like the oak of the forest, she like its clinging 

vines. 



^f)e Eobinff'Cup 193 



'' One draught we'll drink to King Charles; may- 
Satan his foes confound, 

And may every Roundhead rascal rot on the battle- 
ground! 

"Good fortune bid me, sweetheart, for the hawk 

approacheth the lure, 
And soon shall grim Cromwell's soldiers perish on 

Marston Moor." 
Her red lips kiss the goblet, and he kisses the red 

wine's stains. 
And close to his bosom pressed her, as the Loving- 

Cup he drains. 

** And now, farewell to thee, darHng; my steed waits 

at the door. 
Ho! for the good King Charles, and ho! for 

Marston Moor! 
May the Lord in heaven protect thee, my love, 

from sorrow and pain. 
Till our hands may clasp, my sweetheart, this 

Loving-Cup again." 

When I raised the antique goblet those phantom 

lips had kissed. 
Stole through the open portal a strange, unearthly 

mist, 



194 W^t Eotiing-Cup 

And then, like a curtain parted, and before my 

eyes unveiled, 
Lay under the glinting moonbeams a corpse-strewn 

battle-field. 

And there, where the slain were thickest, like leaves 

in the autumn sere. 
His love-locks tangled and gory, lay a gallant 

cavalier. 
I knew the pallid features, though disfigured by 

blood and pain. 
And I knew the hand should never clasp the 

Loving- Cup again. 



"A LITTLE HUT UPON THE BEACH" 

A LITTLE hut upon the beach, 

A view of rock and billow, 
There all day long to lie and dream, 

The white sands for our pillow. 

To watch the ships sail in and out, 

The gulls above us veering, 
And far out in the distant west 

The great sun disappearing. 

This were enjoyment. Naught should come 

To mar our sweet seclusion. 
The echoes of the city's hum, 

Its conflict and confusion, 

Would faintly reach our weary ears. 

And from the harsh commotion 
We ' d turn to list with awe and praise 

The great voice of the ocean. 

We'd find a dear companionship 

In every cliff; we 'd wander 
By dizzy paths, on herb and flower 

And drifting weed to ponder. 

195 



196 ** Si ILiUlz ^nt uvon tbt T5tati*' 

When at our feet lay spars of ships, 

The wounded in the battle, 
Where fierce gales blew, we 'd hear again 

The tempests shriek, the rattle 

Of flapping rope and groaning mast, 
And see the good ship driven 

Before the demons of the blast, 
Loosed from the scowling heaven. 

Again, some branch of stranger tree, 

From coral birthplace torn. 
Would bring back, friend, to you and me 

A glimpse of life's fair morn. 

When in those summer isles we roved. 
And watched their fearless daughters, 

Brown, lovely eyes, like Lorelei, 
Sport in their purple waters. 



WERE I TO DIE TO-NIGHT 

Were I to die to-night, 

Would the memory of the years, 
With their blossoms and their blight, 

With their sunshine and their tears, 
Follow me beyond the grave. 
Were I to die to-night? 

Ah, should I die to-night. 
Would the rose which once she gave 
Be placed upon my grave — 
Dead and lifeless as the clay 
Which beneath its petals lay — 
Would it move the dust beneath 
With the fragrance of its breath? 

Were I to die to-night. 
Would my friends about my bed 
Lay kind hands upon my head, 
And from hearts, with sorrow rife, 
Say in weeping accents thus: 
"He was all in all to us; 
May his long sleep be in peace!" 
197 * 



198 Wittt I to S>it ^O'-MiQit 

Were I to die to-night, 
Would woman's eye be wet; 
Would any say: "Adieu, 
Friend, warm-hearted, true! 
Poor clay! so cold and still, 
Void of sense and soul and will, 
Ere the worm thy essence sips. 
Here 's one kiss upon thy lips — 
Pallid lips with death's seal set, 
Be thy cheeks with our tears wet: 
We shall mourn and not forget; 
Peace be with thee, silent dead!" 

Ah, were I sure of this — 
Sure of woman's tender kiss. 
Sure of friendship's sorrowing hand 
On my brow in kind embrace. 
On my cold, impassive face — 
I could die in peace to-night. 



THE DIFFERENCE 

Sing you a song of love? Ah, no! 

Those days are gone forever; 
The bonds you severed years ago 

May be united never. 

You press my hand, and your sweet eyes 

Revive the ancient passion 
Of hours when you, love, were the prize, 

And courting was in fashion. 

But courting now is dead and stale, 
Gone kiss and fond pursuing; 

The mamma tells the tender tale, 
The papa does the wooing. 

I pluck a rose from yonder bush, — 

Its touch recalls one even, 
When you in the soft twilight's hush 

A foretaste gave of heaven. 

You 've married well; I am not mad. 
Your husband is not jealous; 

And when you think I 'm very sad, 
I ' m only very bilious. 

199 



200 'JCle S>itUuntt 

Your husband is my bosom friend, — 
I lost, he was the winner, — 

I never now regret the end 
When we sit down to dinner. 

I never now regret the pain 
Of all that sweet flirtation. 

The port is good, the dry champagne 
Is ample consolation. 

Sing you a song of love? Ah, no! 

We 've slain the babe of Venus. 
But Heaven ! how quick a turkey goes 

When placed, old friend, between us. 



ON THE BRINK 

*' Let us go," she said, " no further," 

And I saw her backward shrink; 
Beneath us flows the river, 

We are standing on the brink. 
When we hp the glowing goblet 

Do we hesitate to think, 
Or dream when drunk with pleasure 

That our feet have passed the brink ? 

•* Look," she said, " into the darkness, - 

See you nothing there below ? " 
I saw nothing but the willows, 

Waving sadly to and fro. 
But beneath her long dark lashes 

Something lay which made me think; 
Perhaps she does remember 

We are standing on the brink. 

The word remained unspoken, 
The glowing thought unframed, 

For 'twas better, oh! far better. 
That her love should be unclaimed. 



N 



202 flDn tfie IBrmfe 

Than cherished dreams should wither, 
Frail hopes perish link by link, 

And the soul with sorrow wounded, 
Wish it never passed the brink. 

If ever in the future 

You recall that glorious night, 
With its dance and song and music, 

Its soft and sensuous light. 
Oh, remember, too, the river! 

But I would not have you think 
Throb answered not to heart-throb, 

Though I dared not cross the brink. 

Could I tell you that I loved you, 

When I feared the cold reply ? 
Could I speak of my devotion. 

When a dearer one was nigh ? 
And with pain I checked the torrent, 

And forebore the draught to drink, 
Though sadly, sorely tempted, 

When standing on the brink. 



SONG OF THE FIELDS 

How often in my city den, 
When wearied o'er my books, 

I close my eyes and float away 
To pleasant forest nooks. 

I mark along the cafion-side 

The hues of varied green, 
And gleaming, like a copper staff, 

Madroiio's trunk between. 

I lie beside the noisy brook, 

Amid the pungent fern; 
I read with rapture Nature's book, 

And prayerfully discern 

The great, grand page — so new, yet old, 
So vast, so clear, so broad — 

Where every joyous season writes 
The poetry of God. 

No martial rhymes of clanging war, 

No rancorous strife of men, 
But songs of peace and rest and love 

Flow from that mighty pen. 
203 



204 &onff ot tfie jFWti0 

Some sweet-voiced bird the strain begins 

With proud, ambitious trill; 
The song of God the trees take up, 

And breathe it to the rill. 

It sweeps along the rustling grain 

In tender melody; 
And now the pines bend whispering down 

And voice it to the sea. 

O song of songs! how weak, how tame, 
Compared, sounds mortal rhyme! 

Thy fame is for the centuries, 
Thou conqueror of time. 



THE BUSINESS OF THE FUTURE 

Paw, give baby Jack his pillow — 

Hang it o'er his little cot; 
Let him punch it all the morning, 

Let his blows be quick and hot; 

For our little four-year Johnny, 
Sucking now his silver mug, — 

Golden hair and eyes of azure, — 
Shall grow up a lightning **pug." 

Great shall be our little Johnny, 
Not with learning of the schools. 

Not with tedious Greek and Latin, 
Tiresome books and musty rules. 

Sullivan shall be his Homer, 

Jackson his Herodotus, 
Charley Mitchell his Macaulay, 

Dempsey his Theocritus. 

Never shall our little Johnny 

Be permitted to peruse 
All the reckless, vicious nonsense 

Of that idiot, Mother Goose; 

205 



206 ^5e 3Mim00 ot tit ^ntntt 

But when Johnny knows his letters, 

And his tender mind is set, 
From his Httle bank he '11 purchase 

Mr. Fox's live Gazette. 

Paw, remove that silly rattle, 
Throw away that woolly dog; 

Johnny, love, go punch your pillow. 
Lead and dodge, and jab and slog. 

That 's a darling! Now, the right, love! 

Counter now — again — well done! 
Paw, how blest are we in having 

Such a darling, clever son! 

Lizzie, pet, draw near your brother, — 

Never mind his little blows; 
Put your props up, gentle Lizzie; 

Let him punch you in the nose. 

For when Johnny grows up, darling, 
And his name rings through the land. 

You '11 be proud to feel that nose once 
Felt the weight of Johnny's hand. 

Paw and I will sell the farm. 
Just for what the place will bring; 



U6e 15n0im00 of tje Jfuture 207 

With the money we '11 hire talent 
To train Johnny for the ring. 

Not for law, or art, or physic, 
Not to preach or scribble rhyme; 

For the business of the future 
Is the slogger's, all the time. 



THE ROSE AND THE NIGHTINGALE 

''Through all the night long," 

Said the rose, 
" Have I listened to your song," 

Said the rose, 
*' Till the stars above us shining 
Have grown dim with your repining. 
And the murmur of the river 
Seems to echo your ' forever,' " 

Said the rose; 
** But I can love you never," 

Said the rose. 

'* Ah! fair, but cruel flower," 

Said the bird, 
* ' No more I ' 11 seek your bower, ' ' 

Said the bird; 
' * Let the cool stream by us flowing, 
And the trees around us growing. 
Hear my last song, as a token 
Of a vow to be unbroken," 

Said the bird; 
'* Of a love to be unspoken," 

Said the bird. 
208 



die 1Ro0e anti tit jRig^tinffale 209 

" When you sing, my petals close,'' 

Said the rose, 
*' For you trouble my repose," 

Said the rose; 
"But when your song is hushed, 
And the eastern sky is flushed 
With the coming of the day, 
And you are far away," 

Said the rose, 
* ' Then again my heart is gay, ' ' 

Said the rose. 

*' When my song has died away," 

Said the bird, 
' ' In the garish light of day, ' ' 

Said the bird, 
* ' Then your petals open wide, 
For I am not at your side; 
But the wild bee comes and dwells 
Deep amid your honeyed cells," 

Said the bird, 
" In my darling's honeyed cells," 

Said the bird. 

" But the twilight, soft and calm," 
Said the bird, 



2IO f^^t 3Ro0e anti tfie Mi^Wmalt 



''With its zephyrs breathing balm," 

Said the bird, 
' * Will never bring again 
Your lover's song of pain, 
For this very hour we part; 
I will seek some warmer heart," 

Said the bird, 
*' But beware the wild bee's dart," 

Said the bird. 

* ' For a moment stay your heart, ' ' 

Said the rose, 
'' Linger just this single night," 

Said the rose; 
"Ah! forgive my foolish pride; 
Stay forever by my side; 
In my petals you shall lie. 
And shall kiss me till I die," 

Said the rose, 
*' And the bee shall ne'er come nigh," 

Said the rose. 



BAL-MASQUE 

In Paris — 't was almost a year ago, 

At a bal-masque, in the carnival time. 
I wore the motley; the ebb and flow 

Of the reckless crowd, like some ancient rhyme 
Of folly and mirth, which had power, they say, 

To win men's hearts from the present, and be 
Of the morrow careless, with naught to stay 

The current of riotous, reckless glee, 

So filled me, and thrilled me, that, reckless of all, 

I danced and sang, and my song was loud. 
But one there was in that brilliant hair — 

One sweet girl-face in that garish crowd — 
One low, soft voice that drew me apart 

From the rush and revel, by her to stand; 
And the longing that filled my throbbing heart 

When she smiled on me, and I took her hand. 

Was a dream and a story. I know not how. 
But I know — oh, darling, so kind and fair — 

You, with the stars on your low, sweet brow 

Of the Queen of Night, and your rich, dark hair 



212 15ah9^a0qm 



With rare pearls glistening — and I, the clown, 
In motley decked, bells, wand, and cap, 

Were together drawn; and I there laid down 
My heart, O love, in your silken lap! 

A rush and a tumult, a curse and a blow. 

In the light of the morning, dim and gray, 
I am hurried over the shining snow 

To avenge an insult, my comrades say. 
No time have we at honor's call 

To deck ourselves for this grim parade; 
We wear the costumes we wore at the ball. 

And each takes from his second a gleaming blade. 

What is it all about? God knows! 

I only remember a smile and a kiss. 
And a soft hand's pressure, the gift of a rose, 

A curse, a scuffle, the insult, and this. 
In Paris, 't was almost a year ago, 

When face to face with my rival I stood, 
And thrust, and marked on the virgin snow 

The crimson tints of his heart's best blood. 



LEGEND OF THE HAZEL 

The angel of the Lord to Joseph said, *' Fly thither! 
Take the mother and the infant, and into Egypt 

fly; 

For cruel Herod has decreed that Jesus perish, 
whether 
Every child in Israel at his stern command should 
die." 

Then the Virgin took the infant, the sweet child 
newly born. 
And crossed the trackless desert; and then the 
Virgin said, 
•' Let us linger in this hazel grove, and there rest 
till the morn; 
For if we travel farther, child and mother shall 
be dead." 

Out from the frowning heavens, leaped the flash- 
ing thunder, 
And the sand waves of the desert in mighty bil- 
lows rolled, 

213 



214 Ht^txit} ot tilt ^ml 

And they knelt to God the Father, and they prayed, 
as crouching under 
The hazel-boughs, they shivered in the bitter, 
cruel cold. 

Above them and around them, the fiery bolts were 
dashing, 
And the hazel's slender branches over Jesus 
kindly spread. 
And they feared not the anger of that mighty tem- 
pest crashing. 
And that night God blessed the hazel that had 
sheltered Jesus' head. 

Now, since that fateful moment, no thunderbolts 
may harm 
The traveler who shelter seeks beneath the hazel- 
tree, 
For God the Father blessed it, each leaf and branch- 
ing arm 
That guarded child and mother, through all 
eternity. 



MARY'S CAT 

The tall magnolia-tree outside her lattice 

Its heavy perfume flung; 
I said: " I wonder where that yellow cat is, — 

That cat with silvery tongue ? ' ' 

I moved with caution o'er the shining gravel; 

I looked above to see 
My Mary, after weeks of weary travel 

Across the raging sea. 

Now, Mary's cat, the household pet, the daisy, 

Was ever at her side; 
Where Mary is, the cat is, sleek and lazy, 

The cat with yellow hide. 

I softly tapped, no steps came to the portal; 

I pushed the door — 
All silent still; with anxious, timid footfall 

I crossed the floor. 

Ah! she was there — my Mary, fair and blushing! 

Her lips I kissed, 
And all her anxious questions gently hushing. 

Her hand I pressed. 

215 



2i6 9^atf0 €at 



But as she rested on my loving arm 

Her dainty head, 
I noticed with a feeling of alarm 

A hair of red. 

A long, long hair, a coarse-grained hair, a twister! 

*' Whose hair is that? 
It is a flotsam from a man's red whisker! " 

'*It is the cat." 

" No, Mary, no; you can not thus deceive me, — 

Ah, woe is mine! 
That long hair never grew, false maid, believe me, 

On hide feline." 

' ' It did. " " It did n' t. " And in wrath we parted. 

At the mat 
I paused a second, sobbing, broken-hearted, 

To kick the cat. 



IS LIFE WORTH LIVING? 

Is LIFE worth living ? Faith, I hardly know. 

Sometimes I think it is, and sometimes nay. 
When the to-morrows throng upon my soul 

I turn for refuge to the yesterday, — 

Because within the golden past I find 
Some spar to ding to in this ebbing sea; 

Something to give me more of tranquil mind. 
Some little change from human misery. 

Is life worth living ? O the foaming wine 
We drank upon the threshold of the years! 

how it thrilled us, and how faint the line 
On the horizon's verge of future tears! 

Sometimes I deem that could I once again 
Feel but the burning thrill of love's first kiss, 

1 'd give a whole eternity of pain 

For that past joy— that ancient perished bliss. 

O, I remember when my life was young 
How joyously the merry seasons rolled, 

The lips that thrilled, the melodies we sung, 

Ere hands grew palsied and ere hearts grew cold. 

217 
O 



2i8 J0 %iu Qfllortfi Eitiinff? 

Could I within my yearning arms enfold 
The woman that I loved in years gone by, 

Methinks that then I never should grow cold, 
And life's long dirge be changed to lullaby. 

Is life worth living ? Ah ! when I turn back, 
And view the weary road that I have trod, 

And miss the many faces from the track, 

Who from those dim days have been drawn to 
God, 

I truly fear that I am weary too; 

That I, too, fain would rest where they have lain. 
And steal away to join the good and true. 

And bid good-by to worriment and pain; 

Still hoping, when the kindly breezes blow 
Above my grave in some sea-bordered grove, 

The thoughts of those I cherished long ago, 

Would mingle with the winds that swept above. 



THE RIVER'S TEACHINGS 

What whispers the pine to the river ? 

What murmurs the stream to the tree ? 
As its torrents flow onward and ever 

To its home in the clamorous sea ? 
Does it tell of the past, when its margin 

Was lined with the cabins of those 
Who sought for the glittering treasure 

That sleeps where the broad current flows ? 

It springs from its crags to long reaches, 

In thunder, and bubble, and spray; 
It gHdes by its smooth, pebbly beaches 

In the sheen of the soft summer day; 
It boils through rough granite crevasses, 

Now is still as a smooth lake, and then 
From the day and the sun swiftly passes 

To the gloom of the pine-shadowed glen. 

Ah! this is the marvelous story 

The branches bend downward to hear: 

** In the type of man's sadness and glory, 
His triumph, rejoicing, and fear; 
219 



220 fd^t JSiitn'0 %tatiim0 

Not ever the sunlight, not ever 

The smooth pebbles glisten and gleam, — ■ 
There 's labor and wrath in the river, 

Solemn deeps and rude crags in the stream. 

'' I flow on in musical measure, 

And the wild bird chimes in with my strain; 
'Neath my bed lies a glittering treasure, 

Man's agent for pleasure or pain. 
I guard it with jealous resistance; 

Those who trouble my waters for gain, 
Shall find their disturbing insistence. 

Their delving and toiling in vain. 

* * But to him whom my rugged bank wanders 

Not for gold, but from life's cares surcease, 
Steals into his soul as he ponders, 

A lesson of loving and peace: 
To cherish the sun, and not borrow 

The silence and gloom of the glen, 
To know a life mingled with sorrow 

In the heritage given to men." 



FIFTY YEARS AGO 

There stood before a big bazaar 

A mother and her boy; 
Its windows were completely filled 

With every kind of toy — 
With toys that danced, and toys that sang, 

A perfect feast of joy. 

Grave bishops nodded from the shelves, 

In somber raiment clad, 
From ferny grooves peered little elves, 

And windmills spun like mad; 
In fine, the shop held everything 

To make young children glad. 

*' What will you buy, my little son ? 

Here is a good gray steed, 
A gallant charger which might well 

Assist in knightly deed. 
Or on the green turf win the race 

With most excelling speed. 



222 jfift^ ^tat0 ^ffo 

** Here is a farmer, scythe in hand, 

Prepared to mow his wheat, 
And in this cage a Httle bird, 

And here a church and street.' ' 
* * I want the book about the ships 

That sunk the Spanish fleet. 

'' You know the story that you told, 

And grandpa told again. 
How over fifty years ago, 

The battle- cruiser Maine 
Was blown up in the dead of night 

By the wicked men of Spain. 

" And how we sent out other ships 

To punish them, and then 
How gallant Dewey swept their fleet 

From all the southern main; 
And how Cervera's sailors died 

Beneath the iron rain. 

"For that's what grandpa called the shot 
From Sampson and from Schley; 

He said it was an awful thing 
To see those sailors die. 

If we 'd been old, might we have gone, 
My brother Bob and I ?" 



Mttv 9tat0 SiQo 223 



The mother stooped and kissed his lips, 
And said, " Would you have gone 

To fight those awful men, and left 
Poor mamma all alone ? " 

"Of course, mamma, we'd have to go 
And do as grandpa done. 

** Is it not right that all brave men 
When they are called, should go ? 

And take the sword, and take the gun. 
And rush to meet the foe ? 

Those are the words that grandpa said; 
They must be true, you know. 

'* Did he not say that uncle's name, 

Who in the battle died, 
Should be placed in the roll of fame. 

Great heroes' names beside ? 
And we who bear that name can now 

Remember it with pride." 

Thus shall the tales of heroes' deeds, 

For flag and country done. 
Along the generations' line, 

Be proudly handed down. 
Until the earth has passed away, 

And God withdrawn the sun. 



JUST AS OF OLD 

Old Glory waves again, 

Just as of old. 
O'er deck and batde-plain, 

Just as of old. 
Once more the fife and drum 
Summon the hosts to come 
From ocean-side, vale, and town, 

Just as of old. 

The ploughshare is cast aside, 

Just as of old. 
The bridegroom has left the bride, 

Just as of old. 
The mother has sent her son 
Where the grim work is done; 
Battles are lost and won, 

Just as of old. 

Muster the soldiers now, 

Just as of old. 
Hope high on every brow, 

Just as of old. 
. 224 



3lu0t a0 ot flDld 225 

Many a gallant breast, 
On rampart and mountain crest, 
Shall find eternal rest, 
Just as of old. 

Some shall win valor's crown, 

Just as of old. 
Some their young lives lay down. 

Just as of old. 
Many a vacant chair 
Shall the sad truth declare. 
How dear the price of war, 

Just as of old. 

When the sad list is read, 

Just as of old, — 
Names of the soldier dead. 

Just as of old, — 
Many a heart must break. 
For the loved heroes' sake, 
Never again to wake, 

Just as of old. 

Not against brother's life, 

Just as of old. 
Wage we this bloody strife, 

As once of old. 



^^^ Imt aisf 0t €)Iti 



Vermont and Tennessee 
In pure fraternity 
Battle on land and sea, 
Just as of old. 

And when the trumpet-blast 
Sounds the recall, 

And when the sheathe'd sword 
Hangs on the wall, 

Ask what the gain shall be: 

Once more a people free. 

For liberty, victory. 
Just as of old. 



THE EXILE'S MUSINGS 

When the night stars glimmer, and the sun is 
sinking 

To his bed of crimson in the waveless sea, 
I find myself still sadly thinking, 

With heavy bosom, my land, of thee. 
Though the vine above me be richly twining, 

And the jasmine perfumes the evening air, 
I say: My heart! cease this fond repining 

To leave these shores for a land less fair. 
Does that sun you long for, in noontide glowing, 

Gild the drooping ear of the golden grain. 
With a full, rich light to the glad eye showing 

How blest by God is that happy plain. 
Where plenty dwells, and a banner streaming 

Floats proudly over a nation free? 
Then, foolish heart, why art thou dreaming 

Of a land of slaves beyond the sea ? 

Has that land of woe flung a spell around you, 

Unbroken ever by joy or pain, 
And to her shores forever bound you 

In a bond of love, with a magic chain ? 

227 



228 fH^t (Btilt'0 99tx0im0 

That though smiling fields and unending summer 
Surround your dwelling in the home of the free, 

You coldly turn, with a sad glance, from her, 
And murmur, " Ireland, my heart's with thee." 

Have those mystic legends, by mothers chanted 

To their sleeping babes in that shrouded land, — 
Have those somber lakes, by old chieftains haunted, 

Woven around you some fairy band? 
That when laugh is loudest, and wine is streaming 

From the goblet, grasped in the exile's hand, 
With hot cheek flushed, and with proud eye 
gleaming. 

You drink to Ireland, our native land ? 



WHICH? 

Here's luck, my friend! fill up again; 

A few years hence which will it be ? 
Shall you go on to toast and drain, 

While the Dark Angel claimeth me? 

Or will I, standing here as now, 

Remembering all we 've done and said, 

With moistened eye and saddened brow, 
Drink to the dear beloved dead? 

It must be one of us, it must, — 

The hours are fleeting sure and fast; 

The dark grave yearneth for our dust. 
The best of life for us is past. 

One of us must mourn beside 

The coffined form of his dead friend; 

One of us mark the ebbing tide. 
The dying throb that tells the end. 

One of us lay with reverent hand 
The wreath upon the pulseless breast, 

One of us by the other stand 

The while the dead is laid to rest. 

229 



230 ^5ic8? 

One of us muse in dreary days 
On all we twain have lost and won, 

And looking forth to lonesome ways, 
Wish that, like him, our task was done. 

One of us — Pshaw! fill up and drink; 

Who cares for coffin, shroud, and pall ? 
The man's a fool who '11 mope and think, 

And mourn the fate that 's meant for all. 

We 've had our share of wine and bliss; 

Bright eyes and rosy lips we've had; 
We 've never missed a chance to kiss, 

Never a moment to make glad. 

To-night we ' 11 dine, and drink and sing, 
And massive beakers blithely pour, 

And grave thoughts to the wild winds fling, 
And drink, and kiss, and drink once more. 



THE CHAMBER OF SLEEP 

I HAVE a Castle of Silence, flanked by a lofty 

keep, 
And across the drawbridge lieth the lovely chamber 

of sleep; 
Its walls are draped with legends woven in threads 

of gold, 
Legends beloved in dreamland, in the tranquil days 

of old. 

Here lies the Princess sleeping in the palace, solemn 

and still, 
And knight and countess slumber; and even the 

noisy rill 
That flowed by the ancient tower, has passed on its 

way to the sea. 
And the deer are asleep in the forest, and the birds 

are asleep in the tree. 

And I in my Castle of Silence, in my chamber of 
sleep lie down. 

Like the far-off murmur of forests come the turbu- 
lent echoes of town, 

231 



232 Wbt €iambtt ot feleep 

And the wrangling tongues about me have now no 

power to keep 
My soul from the solace exceeding the blessed 

Nirvana of sleep. 

Lower the portcullis softly, sentries, placed on the 
wall; 

Let shadows of quiet and silence on all my palace 
fall; 

Softly draw my curtains. . . . Let the world 
labor and weep, — 

My soul is safe environed by the walls of my cham- 
ber of sleep. 



^^ ^ ^i lyijx 



DEC 20 \im 



